Director Christophe Honoré
Honoré on the set with actors Pierre Deladonchamps (left) and Vincent Lacoste
Honoré (left) and actor Vincent Lacoste
Honoré flanked by Vincent Lacoste (left) and Pierre Deladonchamps
Actors Pierre Deladonchamps (left) and Vincent Lacoste
SORRY ANGEL (Plaire, aimer et courir vite) B+
France (132 mi) 2018 d:
Christophe Honoré
At four in the morning
in summer,
The sleep of love
still lingers,
Under the arbors dawn
evaporates
The scent of the festive night
―Rimbaud, Bonne Pensée
du Matin (A Pleasant Thought in the
Morning), May 1872
A return to form for Honoré after the disaster that was Métamorphoses
(2014), a rare misfire for this director who has always made intelligent films
with a keen eye for deeply probing character studies, always conveying a
literary spirit, which emphasizes this director’s strong point, as this is like
watching pages of a novel unfold. Described by Honoré as the grim and terrifying
days of his youth, this is his most overtly autobiographical film, following
the career path of Rimbaud and others who came from the provinces to seek their
fame and fortune in Paris, in this case following the path of a gay student
from Rennes, the capital city of Brittany, with a burning desire to become a
filmmaker. Played by Vincent Lacoste,
Arthur in his early 20’s studies philosophy and likes to read, still in a
relationship with a girl, though he’s about to be swept off his feet in his
first gay relationship, yet he is not the focal point of the film. That would be Pierre Deladonchamps, from
Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger
By the Lake (L'inconnu du lac) (2013), playing Jacques, a sophisticated writer
and playwright who’s nearing 40, irresistibly charming, erudite, and overtly
gay, though recently diagnosed with the HIV virus, set in 1993 when this was
paramount to a death sentence, as available medicine of the time might extend
the death sentence for a year or two, but it was inevitable. Death hovers over many of the central
characters who have learned to deal with it as an everyday occurrence. Purely by chance, this is the same time
period as Robin Campillo’s 2017
Top Ten List #8 BPM (Beats Per Minute (120 battements par minute), though
this film is not political, but amorous, revealing matters of the heart,
navigating the fears and anxieties of a budding romance, largely seen through
the point of view of Jacques, a curiously self-centered character who
intentionally limits his options by being more distant and cautious, perhaps
even growing more introspective, yet still refuses to shy away from having
grand love affairs. Told out of time in
a non-linear fashion, Jacques is in Rennes for a production of his latest play,
while Arthur is a local college student, meeting in a movie theater watching Jane
Campion’s The
Piano (1993) where they catch each other’s eyes, with Jacques changing
seats to sit next to him, flirtatiously wondering, “I resent how cute your
generation is,” suggesting they meet later in front of the theater. In a humorous diversion, a chatty woman
(presumably the lead in his play) grabs ahold of Jacques, talking incessantly, joking
about his frequent interchangeable lovers, but also blurts out that he has AIDS,
with Arthur overhearing (this doesn’t seem to faze him), trailing close by afterwards,
hiding behind trees and lampposts, following like a shadow in the night.
Honoré was himself a boy from Brittany and would have been
the same age as Arthur back in 1993, having begun his writing career at Cahiers du Cinéma in Paris in 1995
before going on to write novels and plays before discovering a true love for
cinema. On an early trek to Paris we see
Arthur and a cadre of friends making a pilgrimage to the gravesite of François
Truffaut at the Montmartre cemetery, where they break out a little alcohol and
dance, like a celebratory college ritual to the musique du jour, M.A.R.R.S. - Pump Up The Volume
YouTube (7:04). Earlier we see that Arthur
was a summer camp director, visited by his former girlfriend Nadine (Adèle
Wismes), still a bit incredulous that he’s attracted to guys, secretly meeting
up with them in late night hookups during their relationship, inquiring, “How
could you be with someone like me and still sleep with them?” Arthur responds that he always thought he
preferred the company of girls, acknowledging the discovery was only recent,
plunging headfirst into the fray, still questioning and exploring his queer
identity. One of the things Honoré does
so well is introduce both characters individually on their own before they
meet, adding texture and gravitas to their interior worlds, which makes their
initial tryst that much more explosive, as viewers can already identify with
each of them. Arthur is eager and
openhearted, terribly excited to explore a new world, while Jacques is
hesitant, more reserved and world weary, yet hyper-articulate, peppering him
with clever conversation steering him directly into his inner soul, while at
the same time resigned to the idea that he will never again experience that
initial thrill of excitement with somebody new, as the man knows his time on
earth is limited, with zero hour fast approaching. In Paris, Jacques lives with his young son
Loulou (Tristan Farge), sharing joint custody with the boy’s mother, Isabelle
(Sophie Letourneur), who is something of a delight, reminiscent of Bernadette
Lafont from Chabrol’s Les
Bonnes Femmes (1960), while also neighbors with an old friend, Mathieu
(Denis Podalydès), who works as a journalist.
In one of the more intriguing scenes, Jacques invites a former lover to
his home, Marco (Thomas Gonzalez), who is weak and at the end stage of the
disease, joining him in the bathtub for a moment of shared tenderness, an image
that is repeated later on purely in his imagination, as it happens after
Marco’s funeral. On the wall is a
Fassbinder QUERELLE (1982) poster signed by Andy Warhol, while on another wall
is a Léos Carax poster for Boy
Meets Girl (1984). The film does not
shy away from nudity or male copulation, where sex continues to be a major part
of their lives even as their bodies break down and weaken, often the only sign
left that they’re still alive.
After their first fling, Arthur sends plenty of postcards to
Jacques in Paris afterwards, but hears nothing back, losing hope that he’ll
respond, so when he does it comes as a most unexpected surprise, receiving a
phone call just as he’s about to have hot sex with a hitchhiker he picks up
along the highway, described as a young “blond with a cute ass,” with Jacques
on the other end wanting to hear all about it, offering a detailed description
of the various gay types (which has Arthur taking notes on the other end), including
the Maxim’s type embodying youth and
illusion, or the Walt Whitman type
known for sleeping around, the Vondelpark,
an impassive Nordic that shows little emotion, or the Wrong Blond, not exactly who you expected, but he’ll do. Among the more hilarious sequences in the
film, it has the effect of elevating gay imagery to an iconic status, which
adds to the underlying lore of a film like this, which is curiously a romance
where the lovers are rarely in the same city together, where they are basically
alone, building tension by the degree to which they are separated, existing for
the most part in a long distance relationship.
By the time Arthur decides to come to Paris for a visit, Jacques has
begun serious medical treatment and is in a hospital room, with Arthur
audaciously stripping naked to lay down next to him. It’s there in the hospital lobby that he
meets Loulou and Isabelle, with Loulou quoting Rimbaud, reciting to Arthur a
poem where The sleep of love still
lingers. Honoré uses period music to
great effect, including a love scene set to the quiet hush of Cowboy Junkies - I'm So
Lonesome I Could Cry - YouTube (5:25), but also an extended sequence of
lush operatic music by Handel that features a gorgeous soprano castrato aria, Ariodante: Aria: Scherza
infida - YouTube (8:40), adding layers of depth to this beautifully
textured film where all the actors are simply outstanding, continually
elevating this material into a different stratosphere. By the time Arthur decides to move to Paris,
filled with youthful ideas about the world of possibilities, Jacques is too
gravely ill to meet him. However, when
he does happen upon him in a lingering moment, the sparks quickly rekindle, exploring
the Parisian streets until dawn, romantically sleeping by the side of the
Seine, where a new day awaits them.
Arthur is drunk and high on life, in stark contrast to the fading gleam
in Jacques’ eye, yet his hilarious dance sequence with the old fogies, Jacques
and Mathieu, brings a moment of sheer delusion into their otherwise restrained
lives, almost believing they are young again, even hopping into bed together as
a threesome, but this is immediately rectified as overly ambitious, just a
momentary loss of reason before reality sets in. The film is wildly ambitious and may not hit
the director’s previous high notes, but it plumbs the depths of a literary work
onscreen, with the epic sweep of Magnolia (1999),
remaining deeply moving and profound.
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ReplyDeleteI think Honoré is one of the unsung directors of his generation, very overlooked by most of the critics, yet his work is always intellectually probing and extremely high quality.
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