Veteran director Alain Resnais has teamed up with playwright legend Alan Ayckbourn, screenwriter Jean-Michel Ribes and a stellar cast and crew to produce an enjoyable, if somber, filmic essay on the state of love and lust.
Set in Paris and featuring six seemingly normal people, the cinematography is saturated in snowfall both interior and exterior. The snow emphasizes the silence of both the surroundings and the characters of the film. A good movie for a thoughtful and gentle night on the town or that rainy Sunday afternoon, each snowflake promises a covering of past mistakes and misgivings and a chance to start again.
But starting again will have to wait for another film as there are few conventionally happy endings to these love stories.
The film is about six characters involved in four sequences of passion, loss and moving on.
The film opens with real estate agent Thierry (André Dussollier) showing another in a long line of too-small apartments to beautiful Nicole (Laura Morante). Thierry shares his loneliness with his sister Gaelle (Isabelle Carré), although she chooses to fight it and he has long since accepted it.
Both long for romance but Gaelle is empowered by the search for a partner and Thierry is perverted by it, shutting himself into a protective cocoon of emotional stasis. The real estate agent’s emotional emptiness results in his off-center obsession for his secretary, Charlotte (Sabine Azéma), an attractive woman with a penchant for spiritual inspiration and a part-time avocation of unusual film making. On the surface she, as well as Gaelle, are the essence of female vulnerability.
But there are many layers to Alan Ayckbourn’s women and the vulnerable have hidden resources.
While Nicole views apartments her fiancé’ Dan (Lambert Wilson) is notably absent from the search. He is recently released from his military service and his discharge was not an honorable one. A victim of circumstance, he did as military duty demands, taking the blame and giving up the only life he had known. His evenings are spent mulling over his past and excusing his present in the bar run by the widowed Lionel (Pierre Arditi).
As Nicole tours potential nests, cinematographer Eric Gautier treats us to increasingly barren interior landscapes that mirror the desolation of the lonely heart. As Dan and Nicole draw further apart, the ceilings themselves are removed so we can peer into the barren spaces and better appreciate the stripped down interiors of the lonely heart.
Without dwelling on the somber scenery--most of the scenes are interiors and few include sunlight--lens man Gautier gives us emotional photography for an emotional story line. His previous work for “The Motorcycle Diaries” and, more to the point, “Gabrielle,” echoes throughout the shooting. The shots are lush and emotional, but there is little joy in the photography.
André Dussollier is a two time César award winner for his work in director Resnais’ “Same Old Song” and in Claude Sautet’s “A Heart in Winter.” His work in this film is direct and believable, as his character copes with the reality of his isolation and mismanages his confused feelings for his secretary.
A portable glass wall between Thierry and Charlotte resonates with the walls of the apartments he shows to Nicole; the walls between our dreams and our reality and the walls we use to protect ourselves from hurt.
Laura Morante recently appeared in “Avenue Montaigne.” Isabelle Carré is a past César winner for her work in Zabou Breitman’s “Beautiful memories.” Sabine Azéma is another two time César winner for her work with director Resnais in “Mélo” and Bertrand Tavernier in “A Sunday in the Country.”
Pierre Arditi plays Lionel, rejoining director Resnais after their previous collaboration in “Smoking / No Smoking” garnered Arditi his César for Best Actor. Lionel is the widower who tends bar at night, advises Dan about his failing love life with Nicole and provides marginal elder-care for his bedridden father-from-hell.
His father is played in voice only by Claude Rich who does an excellent job of screaming and shouting the inhumanity of love lost as part-time caretaker Charlotte dreams up her existential torture for the old man. Dan is played by five time César nominee Lambert Wilson.
Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs)
Limited USA opening: April 13, 2007. MPAA: Not Rated
Your Talkback on this Story