GOLDEN YEARS (Nos
années folles) C-
France (103 mi)
2017 d:
André Téchiné
Unfortunately, a
lifeless period piece that never rises to the occasion, with few insights or
revelations, and no emotional connection whatsoever, that never hints at the
underlying psychology to explain how events like this actually occurred,
supposedly based on real-life experiences, yet the audience remains distanced
and far removed from any of the characters, where the story plays out more as
utter fiction than reality. Téchiné has
always been a brilliant director of actors, working with some of the best
throughout his career, and while that’s not the problem here, the story makes
little sense, never remotely becoming believable. Essentially a story about Paul Grappe, Pierre
Deladonchamps from Stranger
By the Lake (L'inconnu du lac) (2013), a deserter from the French army
during WWI, who goes to extreme lengths to avoid detection, dressing up as a
woman, changing his/her identity, which continues even after the war is over,
becoming much more intriguing as a woman than he ever was as a man, reinventing
himself as Suzanne, a cabaret performer, famous for indulging herself in
brothels, where you’d think he’d be immediately exposed as a man, but the film
never addresses this issue and pretends like he doesn’t have a penis. You’d think that would be pretty easy to spot
when having sex, not just once in a while, but all the time, where the bordello
he frequents is famous for orgies in Paris during the Roaring Twenties, yet no
one utters a word. While the story may
be brave for tackling the subject, adapted from a 2011 book by two historians, La Garconne et L’assassin (The Boyish Woman
and the Assassin) by Fabrice Virgili and Daniele Voldman, at least as
presented in the movie, none of it appears credible, especially during the
madness and hysteria surrounding WWI.
Let’s not forget, had Suzanne been outed as an army deserter, he would
have been shot by a firing squad for treason, as depicted in the Terence Davies
film 2016 Top
Ten List #7 Sunset Song or Kubrick’s masterpiece PATHS OF GLORY
(1957).
Moving back and
forth in time, using frequent flashbacks, the movie becomes a story within a
story that is ostensibly being told as part of a cabaret show directed by
Samuel (Michel Fau), a flamboyant theater owner who supposedly discovered
Suzanne, with Paul playing the part of himself, while a much younger actress
plays his wife Louise. At least
initially they are a young couple who is madly in love, with Louise, Céline
Sallette from Bertrand Bonello’s House
of Tolerance (L’Apollonide – souvenirs de la maison close) (2011), a
dedicated and hardworking seamstress in town, working in a factory with other
women, seen sneaking around avoiding her parent’s detection to find moments
alone with Paul, though none of it escapes the watchful eye of her adoring
grandmother (Virginie Pradal), almost always seen in the corner smoking
a pipe. Eventually the couple marries,
but war breaks out, and almost immediately Paul is ordered to the
frontlines. Surrounded by nothing but
inhumanity and death in the trenches, Paul blows his index finger off in order
to be sent home, but is ordered back to the frontlines again, which is
something he simply can’t face. With the
help of a hidden cellar in Louise’s grandmother’s house, Paul hides out in
secrecy to avoid detection as the war drags on for years. Growing bored with himself, Louise, always a
pragmatist, comes up with the idea of dressing him up as a woman, which allows
him the freedom to finally go outside.
Plucking his eyebrows while providing garters and a dress, applying
makeup on his face and a wig on his head, she is amused at her latest creation,
immediately having sex afterwards, telling him, “It’s not so bad being a
woman. At least we don’t wage war.” With that, Paul transforms into Suzanne,
curiously strolling through the Bois de Boulogne district, famous for sexual
escapades, and walking inside, adopting a new persona, supposedly purging
himself of the brutality of war.
Suzanne embraces
this new bisexual lifestyle, charging for her services, becoming ever more
comfortable with the nightlife, drinking champagne, dressing in the finest
gowns, and constantly being pampered, like she’s at the center of a new
universe, suddenly important and significant.
While this causes some degree of marital distress, Louise is the picture
of a woman who would do anything to save her marriage. Occasionally bringing Louise along to these
elegant soirée’s, she shies away from the attention, not really comfortable
with the orgiastic sex or this liberated version of her husband. Inexplicably, a shy young war hero, Count
Charles de Lauzin, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet from Christophe Honoré’s
LOVE SONGS (2007), falls madly in love with her and wants to swoop her off her
feet in extravagant luxury and wealth, but she remains a devoted wife, claiming
she loves her husband the way he is, and ducks away. By this time, however, viewers are hardly
sympathetic to Suzanne, who is the picture of indulgence and narcissism,
thinking of no one else but herself, and certainly blind to the consequences of
being discovered, where, as if to emphasize the couple’s downward spiral, Téchiné introduces (slightly before its
time) the Depression era music of Bessie Smith, Bessie Smith (Nobody Knows
You When You're Down And Out, 1929 ... YouTube (3:04). When the war is over, Louise and the
other working girls are euphoric, greeting the returning soldiers with dances
and kisses on their cheeks. Suzanne
continues to live the same way, not wanting to lose all the attention, forcing
his wife to lie about the whereabouts of her husband, as if his absence is a
lingering mystery, perhaps killed in the war.
Likely overcompensating, she becomes devoutly patriotic, taking a hard
line on deserters, where she’s forced to put on an act while her husband is
screwing anyone and everyone in the Bois de Boulogne, coming home drunk nearly
every night. It’s only when amnesty is
offered to deserters that Paul finally comes clean, acknowledging his little
charade, but in retreating back to a man’s life he becomes bitter and hateful,
literally a contemptible person, treating Louise horribly. So when cabaret impresario Samuel offers to
make a theatrical extravaganza based upon his life, Paul jumps at the
opportunity to return to his life as Suzanne, indulging once more in the same
old habits. The deterioration of their
doomed marriage is a dramatic descent, yet this film couldn’t be more
unengaging, one of the major disappointments in Téchiné’s career, arguably his worst effort ever, where in the
end, the best thing about the picture is its use of French songs, including the
final credit sequence.
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