Trust the French on the know how of portraying how love can arise and how they can go away but always with its own peculiar twist. Just as people can love in different ways, so French directors will always have their own manner of saying the same thing but in a way which is entirely original and even the same director can do the same thing differently in different films. This is the thought that occurs to me at the end of the film Une Autre Vie of French director Emmanuel Mouret who writes, directs and frequently acts in his films, among them Change Of Address and The Art Of Love.
Mouret likes to portray love but in his latest offer, he does it with a sombre wist. A bit like Erich Rohmer, he is often obsessed with exploring moral dilemmas through his films. In this film, he treats that subject which had been done to death: adultery.
The film opens with a pair of hands and fingers flying through a row of black and white keys on the a piano keyboard. We then see in profile a pianist in a black dress playing (Aurore--Jasmine Trinca). At the end of the piece, she collapses. The story starts with such a collapse. She is rushed to hospital. Nothing much, just exhaustion, from a too grueling performance schedule, training and a certain emotional vacuum in her life. Then we see her learning hard in front of a piano with a young man (Thibault Vinçon) beside her trying to explain the piece to her and she trying hard to understand what's on the score in front of her. We see from the way he looks at her that the young composer fancies her but when he leaves and she sees her down and he tries to take advantage of the situation to get more intimate with her, how she hesitates and pushes him back. Aurore needs an alarm system to be installed in her house. A colored man came Jean (Joe Starr) whilst she was practising with the young composer and when he leaves, she asked him a few questions out of politeness and he goes on his way. We see a pensive look on her face. She asks if he'll come back. He says he may, just to see to see if there are any problems. She goes to a fashion shop and is served by a salesgirl Dolores (Virgine Ledoyen). She hesitates if she is going to take the dress. Dolores says she should try it out on to see if it fits. She does. She says it looks nice on her. She takes it. As she is leaving, we see Jean enters. They look at each other, a bit surprised. Dolores notices this and asks him who Aurore is. He says that she's one of his clients. She leaves them. Next we see Jean going to her house. Aurore is not there but her maid Claudine (Ariadne Ascardie) lets him. He checks the alarms. And as he is leaving, Aurore returns. He says everything is OK and is leaving. They got talking and he says he used to play music but gave up but he likes music. As he is going down, she mentions that she will be throwing a party over the weekend and that if he likes, he'd be most welcome. He says that he'll see how it goes. He doesn't show up. But we are shown how when he drives his van home, he is listening to classical piano music.
In the meantime, Aurore tells his brother Paul, who used to be a pianist himself but had since quit after he lost the use of three fingers and is now acting as her sister's eager manager, how she is thinking of taking a break because her exhaustion but he's against the idea. In the interval, Jean could not resist going to see Aurore again. They were quite happy together. We see them looking at the sea together, having fun. He tells her Dolores was the daughter of his father's boss as a laborer and they grew up together and when his father was about to die, his own father promised him that he'd look after her after he's gone. Since they had known each other for so long and Dolores was a ravishing beautiful young girl, they stayed together. One day, Dolores dropped in unannounced at Aurore's and told her bluntly to keep off her man because unlike her, she got nothing except Jean. Aurore couldn't bring herself to stop. We see how in order to keep Jean, she showed him a pair of baby's shoes and announced that she was pregnant. He did not seem to share her joy. Then Dolores was invalidated for an accident because he was not paying attention on his driving. Aurore went to the hospital and asked the doctor how she was. For several months, Jean had to take care of her and he did. She starts reading detective novels, something she did not previously do. But Jean still arranged a rendezvous with Aurore every Friday afternoon at a convenient hotel. She just needed him. One day, she told Paul she wanted to play again. She appeared on stage and we see how happy Paul was reading a newspaper review by a music critic saying how marvelous her come back was after her break and expressing surprise how it was possible that such a young pianist could mature within such a short time.
In the meantime, we see how her doctor began to pay her home visits. He explains that after reading a thesis from one of his students that patients who got home visits by their treating doctors have a much higher recovery rate than those who don't. She asks him if he visits all his patients at home. He's silent. On one of his visits, he gives her a detective novel he thinks she'd like. She thanks him and keeps it. Then one day, she disappears, leaving behind that detective novel given her by her doctor. We next see Aurore waiting for the doctor after she got an urgent call from him. Before the doctor explains to her the purpose of the call, Jean also appears. Then he explains that he had been told by Dolores to announce to them that she is now safe but would not tell them where she is.
We next see Aurore visiting Dolores at a convent. Dolores is now teaching handicapped children how to read from her wheelchair and one of her student's father was sheepishly sending her flowers. Dolores is surprised. Aurore explains that she hired a detective to track her down because she knows that since she left without a word, Jean had become more distant with her, absent though present and that he still cared a lot for her. Maybe Dolores has learned that the best way of killing a developing relation is to allow the lovers to stay together and to play on their guilt. If so, did she learn what she did reading that detective novel given her by the doctor ?
It's another one of those fairy tale romances the French are expert in producing working class man falling in love with high society lady: a kind of Cinderella story with gender changes: non-exaggerated and subtle suggestions from little looks, tiny gestures, body postures and apparently non-studied acting, beautiful atmosphere, brief dialogues, nice music, ravishing photographic capture of light and shade and color hues and studied screen composition. And on top of that, a little paradoxical moral! Excellent execution of a fascinating romantic policier, Erich Rohmer with a touch of Hitchok! You never know what's coming next! Till the end of the film we never know if Jean is in fact married with Dolores. Everything comes from unspoken hints which we gather from the words and actions of the protagonists and the other actors/actices. The French have refined the art of showing, not telling. Perhaps that's something Hong Kong directors should not resist from learning? .
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