Director
Sólveig Anspach
THE AQUATIC EFFECT (L'effet aquatique) B
aka: The Together
Project
France Iceland (83 mi)
2016 d: Sólveig
Anspach co-director: Jean-Luc Gaget
One of those quirky films that deserves to be seen,
featuring oddball humor at its finest, yet it’s a rare style not easy to
replicate, much of which must be attributed to the director Sòlveig Anspach,
who unfortunately died of breast cancer in August of 2015, about a year prior
to the release of this film, completed by co-writer and co-director Jean-Luc
Gaget. Having an Icelandic mother and an
American father, yet raised her entire life in France, Anspach has a unique
international perspective on life, one that is truly borderless, where in her
wacky sense of humor and upbeat Voltairian manner she utilizes the best of all
possible worlds. Thriving on absurdity,
sight gags, eccentric characters, and screwball comedy, she also creates
wonderful characters that you won’t find anyplace else, carving out a unique
niche in the world of cinema, awarded the SACD Award (Society of Dramatic
Authors and Composers) in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in a jury headed by
Bertrand Tavernier. The third of her
Trilogy of Comedies, following BACK SOON (2008) and QUEEN OF MONTREUIL (2012),
this film picks up where her last film left off, in the Parisian suburb of
Montreuil, featuring returning characters Agathe, Florence Loiret-Caille, who
is utterly brilliant, unflappable in her calm assurance, yet fiery when it
comes to things she doesn’t like, such as liars and phonies, and Samir (Samir
Guesmi), a somewhat shy and aloof, yet quizzical French-Arab crane operator and
construction worker with a hangdog expression who is immediately blown away by
the way Agathe undresses a guy in public with a verbal tirade of incensed fury,
where she blows her stack in a bar at a guy’s lame tactics to get into her
pants, thoroughly brushing him off and leaving in a huff. Her sense of indignation is classic, and her
headstrong style unforgettable. Wanting
to see more, he learns she’s a lifeguard and swimming instructor at the Maurice
Thorez municipal pool, signing up immediately for lessons. His impeccable taste in Speedos catches the
eye of another instructor, however, Corinne (Olivia Côte), whose offensive body
humor and intrusive shower etiquette suggest sadomasochistic dominance, where
he needs the help of a sorry looking ticket seller Daniel (Estebán) and
eccentric pool manager Reboute (Philippe Rebbot) to help guide his way into
Agathe’s class.
Pretending he can’t swim, he enters at the introductory
level, where he’s very impressed by her hands-on approach, growing a bit
delirious at the thrill of it all, beautifully expressed in underwater scenes
with both wearing goggles, yet he carefully conceals his glee until one night
when he awkwardly gets locked inside the building. Miraculously discovering Agathe alone in the
pool, things go swimmingly, so to speak, as they both open up to one another,
leading to a trip up to the high board where they share a kiss and an embrace
before they are rudely interrupted by Reboute with a boombox, a bottle of
champagne, and designs on impressing two young floozies by pretending to be the
owner of the pool. When one of the girls
sinks to the bottom of the pool, Samir jumps into action off the high-dive,
literally saving her from drowning. Of
course, Agathe realizes the deception and quickly exits, leaving Reboute to
face the charges of his misconduct, where the investigation is led by none
other than the film director herself.
She has a charming way of getting him to realize the error of his ways,
as Reboute sheepishly tries every which way to squirm out of it. By the time the storm has passed, Agathe is
gone, having flown to Iceland for an international lifeguard congress in
Reykjavík — only in this film would they invent such a thing, identified as the
10th International Congress of Swimming Coaches, where she is the chosen
representative of the Seine-Saint-Denis region of Paris. Not knowing what else to do, Samir heads for
the airport. Life in Iceland is
decidedly different, as evidenced by the alternating schedule of City Counselors,
Anna (Didda Jónsdóttir, an Anspach regular) and Frosti (Frosti Jón Rúnólfsson),
where they switch who is in charge on consecutive days, with each thoroughly
enjoying being the boss of the other, making them perform the most
humiliatingly trivial jobs. The sleek,
modern look of the conference center has an inviting style of architecture that
accentuates glass windows, creating an unusual sense of open air and unlimited
space, providing a friendly atmosphere that breathes openness and
understanding.
With Agathe at the podium delivering introductory remarks,
her eyes become fixed on the Israeli delegate, none other than Samir, where she
decides to put him on the spot and cede the floor to him. In halting speech, after a bit of stuttering
and stammering, he comes up with the idea of meeting with the Palestinian
delegate to build a joint Israeli-Palestinian swimming pool, accent on the
often repeated word “together,” a peace gesture that he decides to call “The
Together Project.” The auditorium goes
wild with enthusiasm, where he’s immediately heralded the celebrity of the day,
with everyone wanting to shake his hand, or take selfies together, with a
skeptical Palestinian delegate, a real estate developer, handing him his
business card suggesting they meet, where overnight he’s the most popular guy
in town, where all the girls want to share a drink with him. Agathe, on the other hand, is stupefied by
the trickery on his part, knowing it’s all an act. But in Iceland, it’s all about Anna and
Frosti, an exaggerated comic routine of hyperbole, slapstick, and personal
ridicule, each continually making fun of the other. But it’s also a glimpse into Anna’s extended
family, viewed as a picture of complete dysfunction, where her son turns out to
be a foie gras smuggler, stealing a farmer’s geese to manufacture his own
product line, while at the same time Agathe fumes about the Israeli delegate’s
deceit. But when she describes how this
guy lied to her and then traveled all the way to Iceland just to see her again,
the others find it a terribly romantic gesture that subjected him to extreme
ridicule, a French-Arab character pretending to be Israeli at an international
event, yet he somehow landed on his feet, where all the Icelandic women now
want to flirt with him. Veering into
totally unexpected territory, Samir loses his memory from a freak accident,
leaving him neurologically compromised, as he can’t even remember his name,
where he may or may not be faking it.
Who knows? It ends up being a
goofy love story that is hilariously offbeat, always providing the unexpected,
yet it has the ability to capture characters at their most vulnerable moments,
providing a window into their true selves, where they’re really just a couple
of lonely people. Totally implausible
throughout, none of that matters, as it’s a touching film that is a delight
throughout, where the zany experience feels like a breath of fresh air, where
it will be extremely hard to fill the void left behind from the loss of this
director.
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