For me, there cannot be a film in this year's HKIFF that I like better than Mademoiselle Chambon of Stephane Brize. It's a simple film. It's a film about that oldest of subjects: adultery. It is a most difficult film to make. I do not know how many other films have already treated the same subject before. Yet with the help of Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain and Aure Atika, it is totally credible. More than that, it is done with sensitivity, with prudence, with subtlety and above all with beauty. I always like French love films.They have reflected quite a bit about this ancient, common but intriguing emotion and they know it like no one else. After all, they had such illustrious forebears as Stendhal, Flaubert etc. It has that French touch which one admires in their fashion, their parfumes, their wines: that care, that attention to detail, that willingness to spend time to get that sense of being just right, not too much, not too little, and always with taste. It has that Chateau Latour quality of age, of bouquet, that subtlety, that complexity of taste which gradually unfolds itself, slowly, naturally, with time.
The film begins with Anne Marie (Aure Atika) and Jean (Vincent Lindon) trying to help their son Jeremy (played by the adorable Arthur Le Hueron), a primary school student how to find the "objet direct" in a sentence as part of the latter's homework. The father did not know. Neither did the mother. Then they tried to look for the definition and an example in the livre de l'etudiant and step by step, guided by Jean, they found it. Jean works as a mason and Anne Marie as a binding worker in a printing factory. Jean is very careful, works well and loves his work. His father was a construction worker too and he learned his trade from his father, now retired, whom he visits from time to time and whenever he does, he washes his feet for him.
In the next scene, his wife injured her back whilst trying to lift up a crate of printed materials for the binding machine. She could not move without the most excruciating pain. Therefore, Jean had to pick up Jeremy from school. He did so, asked his way around and met Veronique Chambon, his son's substitute teacher, for that year. Whilst there, he was asked if he was a mason. He said yes. He was asked if he minded to talk a bit about his occupation to the students since another parent who was supposed to do so on his own occupation or trade had just told her that he did not have time. He hesitated a bit but finally said yes. He kept his promise. He gave a simple talk about what he did, using everyday language which the kids could understand and how one always started with a solid foundation and then start building the superstructure, brick by brick.. The students' interest was piqued and asked him lots and lots of question, like how many bricks it would take to build the school, how he got into the trade, and whether he liked what he did etc. He said he like building because it gave him a peculiar feeling of satisfaction because one created something from nothing. It was a success.
Whilst Jean was doing giving his down to earth presentation, he was quietly observed by Veronique who after the class asked him if he enjoyed doing what he just did. He said it gave him enormous joy to talk about something he loved. Then it occurred to Veronique that she had a problem with a door which didn't close properly and therefore let in the draughts and asked him if he knew any one who could fix it and how much it would cost. He said he would have to look at it first. So he went to her house, looked at it and then suggested that the wood of the door had become so rotten that it would have been much better if it were replaced instead of being repaired because then there would be no problem for a long long time.Next we see him working away, digging out the plaster frame, putting in the wooden frame, using his straight rule to ensure that it is upright, drilling holes at the appropriate places for the fixing nails, plastering over the cracks between the new door frame and the surrounding wall, slowly, carefully, methodically. When he was finished, Veronique who wanted to read on her bed whilst he was working found she could not because of the noise and fell asleep. When he finished inspecting his handidwork, he called her. There was no reply. He gingerly walked to her room and found her sound asleep. He did not want to wake her. So he looked around her sitting room. He discovered a photograph of her with a violin on the book shelf. He looked at it carefully. When she woke up, he showed her the new door. When it was closed, she found there was no more noise from outside and no more draught. She was delighted. Then he told her that whilst she was asleep, he discovered that she is a violinst and asked if it might not be too much if he were to ask her to play a piece for him. She said she hadn't played for a long time. He said he would really like to hear. He looked very sincere. She took the violin, hesitated, took a deep breath and started playing. She played very well. She played from her heart. It was very very moving. The sound recording was excellent. You hear the tiniest scratch of the bow on the string, the slightly screeching sound of the high notes, all the texture of each note and each double stringed chord were so meticulously recorded. The piece was so sad. There is a certain loss of hope, a bleakness, a desperation and desolation in the music.Of course, her play was not that of a Heifetz or Oistrach but there was such an honest intensity in its feelings that one could not fail but be moved. It drew tears from my eyes, despite my best effort to hold them back and much to my embarrassment. Jean listened carefully, as in everything else he did. He was touched. He looked at her in silence. She too was moved. He asked if she got a CD of what she played. She introduced several to him and lent them to him. On the way home, he drove mechancially as if he had been reduced to a bare shell. He could think of nothing but the beautiful sound of the violin he just heard. He was haunted by its wistful melody.
In the next scene. Anne Marie had recovered. She was ironing clothes. Jean talked to her about how to arrange his father's 80th birthday party. He was thinking of having a seated dinner. She suggested that it might be easier if they just had a buffet for 20. He said that since it was a very big day for his father and he wanted something different this year for him. He said with a bit of organization, that should not be difficult. He said his father's party has already been postponed to fit her holiday plans and if she did not want it, he could call up the others and tell them that the party would be cancelled. There would not be any problem for him if he were to do that. Anne Marie said there was no need for him to be so angry. It was just a suggestion.
Then by accident, he bumped into Veronique again. She asked him if he had listened to the discs. He said he didn't. Then she told him she needed to paint the windows and asked for some advice. He told her what to look out for when she was doing the painting and suggested what to buy for that purpose. She followed his advice. Then he drove to her house and called her. She heard him on the answering machine. He said he had come to apologize for having to tell her on the previous occasion that he had not yet listened to the discs and that he had listened to them now and he liked them. She said that if he was interested, she could lend him other discs. He said he was. He went into her house. They looked into each other's eyes. They leaned their heads against each other and soon they were in bed together. There were tears in her eyes when it ended.. She told him she had been offered another contract to continue teaching if she wanted but she had not yet decided. He told her his wife is pregnant. Then he asked her if she would play for his father at his party. She hesitated. The party day came. She came too, with the violin and played a love theme from Elgar. When she played she was very concentrated. Again she played with great emotion. Anne Marie saw the way she looked when she was playing but she did not say anything. After that, we see Jean at work again, full of thoughts. We were shown a shot showing him walking up a ladder. We we can see how slowly he moved and how heavy each step appeared to be and the weight on his mind.
In the next scene, he was shown asking a fellow worker several times to be careful and not apply too much force with his electric saw which the latter was using to help him cut a slab of concrete he was then holding. But the other would not pay attention despite his repeated reminders and broke the saw blade. He was mad because the other persisted in doing it his way and broke the saw blade so that all work had to stop. He called him a shithead. The other was furious and wanted to bash him. But another worker intervened and stop the brewing fight.
In the next scene, he saw Veronique. He asked her if it was true that she was leaving. She said yes. He then said he would leave with her. She told him not to say that unless he really would. On the day she was leaving, he drove her to the train station. He brought his own travel bag with him. But in the next scene, he was seen with his wife, his travel bag on the kitchen floor. She was making some calculations or other on the kitchen table. He poured himself a cafe and sat down. She did not say anything. Neither did he. The film ends.
In this film. The sound was excellent. It was excellent in two ways. First of course, there was the violin music, which was used to great effect and at just the right moment. The film ended with a French folk song sung with vibrato by a female voice in the typical French fashion with accordion accompaniment. It places the powerful emotional drama which unfurled in silence in the previous hour within the French tradition of singing about the sadness of impossible loves which the seasons evoke . There is little one can do in such situations except acquiesce reluctantly. Then there was the silence, which Brise used to even better effect. The emotional impact was achieved not through the dialogue but the abandonment of daft dialogue. The characters could say a thousand words without saying any one, just by the pauses and the lull in their conversation, by their looks, by their eyes, by their body postures. And both Lindon and Kiberlain were simply great. They were once husband and wife. They knew each other intimately, even off stage. I suppose that must have not a small part to play in the creation of that special kind of emotional magic without words which only long periods of togetherness could foster. It almost seemed as if the music and the silence had become characters in their own right in this film. What Veronique and Jean did not say was even more eloquently and powerfully said for them by the violin and the knowing silence! Equally good were Aure Atika, who did not overplay her role of the drudging wife. Arthur Le Hueron was so cute and natural. The other children too were adorable. It is not often that one gets to see a film about such impossible love portrayed with such lack of cliché and with such sensitivity. I really do not know when I will have the chance to see another bright young director who is able to put a new face on this perennial problem with equal talent.
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