Alain Resnais, Coeurs
Way back when, Alain Resnais directed two of the art house classics - Hiroshima Mon Amour, a meditation on war and love between he and she, and L'Anée Derniere a Marienbad, the French New Wave at its most Dickian. He's one of those directors who like Truffaut I had assumed had passed on but, like Chabrol and Godard he's still active, if less political.
He's adapting Alan Ayckbourn. Again.
Ayckbourn, former actor (I believe he was in some early Pinter plays) is one of the top three performed British playwrights - along with John Godber and some Brummie - and is notorious for plays in which he gets the middle classes to laugh at themselves, and which are fiendishly well structured: two dinner parties on two nights in two houses performed at the same time, a play which has the offstage events of a simultaneously performed play to which is offstage to that play, a branching play with sixteen possible outcomes... And also a serious side, underlying the comedy. I've been a fan of his stuff, live.
This adaptation of Private Fears in Public Places moves the events from London to a snowy Paris and is an ensemble tale of lovers and potential lovers. Nicole (Laura Morante) is shown round a flat by estate agent Thierry (André Dussollier) as she tries to save her relationship with Dan (Lambert Wilson). Back in the office, Thierry is lent a tape of a religious programme by his co-worker Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré), which turns out to have footage of erotic dancing on the end of the programme, presumably performed by Gaëlle. Meanwhile Dan is drinking in a hotel bar with the barman, Lionel (André Dussollier) and goes on a blind date with Thierry's daughter, Charlotte (Sabine Azéma), and Gaëlle looks after Lionel's sick father.
This is told in what felt like an endless series of short scenes, interspersed with endless snow. There's the sense here than any love is joyless, any sex is empty and sordid. There are moments of comedy but - well, perhaps this is one of Ayckbourn's bleaker plays. The deeply pious Gaëlle turning out to be an erotic dancer was both unconvincing and a cheap, even misogynistic, moment. The hardly seen father felt like it belonged in a sitcom. Thierry being caught watching porn - well, one never wants to think of parents having sexlives, but surely the French are more ... chic?
It's beautifully shot (although I longed for cinematic cuts over theatrical crossfades through snowstorms - I wasn't in the mood for mannered and lugubrious), and breaks away from realism at various points. I think I expected more from a veteran like Resnais. My bad.
He's adapting Alan Ayckbourn. Again.
Ayckbourn, former actor (I believe he was in some early Pinter plays) is one of the top three performed British playwrights - along with John Godber and some Brummie - and is notorious for plays in which he gets the middle classes to laugh at themselves, and which are fiendishly well structured: two dinner parties on two nights in two houses performed at the same time, a play which has the offstage events of a simultaneously performed play to which is offstage to that play, a branching play with sixteen possible outcomes... And also a serious side, underlying the comedy. I've been a fan of his stuff, live.
This adaptation of Private Fears in Public Places moves the events from London to a snowy Paris and is an ensemble tale of lovers and potential lovers. Nicole (Laura Morante) is shown round a flat by estate agent Thierry (André Dussollier) as she tries to save her relationship with Dan (Lambert Wilson). Back in the office, Thierry is lent a tape of a religious programme by his co-worker Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré), which turns out to have footage of erotic dancing on the end of the programme, presumably performed by Gaëlle. Meanwhile Dan is drinking in a hotel bar with the barman, Lionel (André Dussollier) and goes on a blind date with Thierry's daughter, Charlotte (Sabine Azéma), and Gaëlle looks after Lionel's sick father.
This is told in what felt like an endless series of short scenes, interspersed with endless snow. There's the sense here than any love is joyless, any sex is empty and sordid. There are moments of comedy but - well, perhaps this is one of Ayckbourn's bleaker plays. The deeply pious Gaëlle turning out to be an erotic dancer was both unconvincing and a cheap, even misogynistic, moment. The hardly seen father felt like it belonged in a sitcom. Thierry being caught watching porn - well, one never wants to think of parents having sexlives, but surely the French are more ... chic?
It's beautifully shot (although I longed for cinematic cuts over theatrical crossfades through snowstorms - I wasn't in the mood for mannered and lugubrious), and breaks away from realism at various points. I think I expected more from a veteran like Resnais. My bad.