Other People's Children (Les Enfants des Autres)

 

Writer/director Rebecca Zlotowski

The director on the set with Callie Ferreira-Goncalves

Zlotowski with Virginie Efira

Virginie Efira

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN (Les Enfants des Autres)                        B                                 France  (103 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: Rebecca Zlotowski

Life is so short and long at the same time.                                                                              —Rachel Friedmann (Virginie Efira)

Having seen several earlier films by Zlotowski, this feels like a decades-later extension of that same brash Léa Seydoux character from Rebecca Zlotowski’s Belle Épine (2010), or Grand Central (2013), where Belgian-born lead actress Virginie Efira has a remarkably strong screen presence, bearing a surprising physical resemblance to Seydoux, but now in her mid-40’s, where each of these female characters are likely drawn from the personal experiences of the director, who writes her own screenplays, with this film supposedly inspired by her relationship with director Jacques Audiard.  It features a woman in an existential mid-life crisis, having always been consumed by her teaching career, delaying having children, an intrinsic part of her female identity, just assuming it would eventually happen, having waited too late, and now senses an impending emergency, as her dwindling fertility levels offer only a small window of opportunity.  Efira plays Rachel Friedmann, a socially outgoing and stunningly attractive high school teacher, where it’s clear she takes a personal interest in the lives of her students, having an impact in their lives and career choices, helping them make good decisions about the future, yet surprisingly she has no personal life to speak of, remaining close to her younger sister Louana (Yamée Couture) and father (Michel Zlotowski), the director’s own father.  Zlotowski earned a degree in literature and actually wanted to become a teacher, but once she joined the screenplay department of La Fémis, a prestigious Parisian film school, she was hooked on making films that she wrote herself.  Belle Épine is more of a sketch than a screenplay, offering a slice-of-life into the dreary existence of an impressionable adolescent on the motorcycle circuit, while Grand Central is more of a class exposé, examining the dead-end lives of exploited nuclear power workers, where the emotional risks of sexual promiscuity are presented side-by-side with the dangerous hazards of working inside a nuclear reactor.  A similar pattern of both films is how underwritten they are, leaving plenty to the imagination of viewers, while also accentuating the extreme vulnerability of women who are not shy about their sexuality, as Zlotowski tends to showcase the female form in all its glory, and this film is no different.  However, it feels like a more mature work than her earlier films, offering a mix of tenderness and cruelty in an enveloping atmosphere of breezy modernity, with scenes ending in an iris fade to black closing in a diminishing circle, a silent film technique often used by François Truffaut, with a simplistic storyline that’s more fleshed out and easy to identify with, yet one common denominator in all her films is that they feature superlative performances from the lead actress.  Efira won the Best Actress Lumières Award, where it’s a bit surprising she hasn’t been better showcased in her earlier films, but in Zlotowski’s hands, she just radiates, offering a career performance.

Unlike her other films, this is predominately a romantic drama, where the tragedy of relationships is that they don’t turn out the way we’d like, bearing some resemblance to Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning (Un Beau Matin) (2022), as both are about middle-aged women falling in love again, where a whirlwind love affair develops between Rachel and Ali Ben Attia (Roschdy Zem, winner of the Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 for Rachid Bouchareb’s DAYS OF GLORY), representing a surge of emotions with each surrendering to torrid sexual passions, as there’s a giddiness in the air, almost too perfect.  With an emphasis on small moments, including gestures, observations, and sensations, one of the key scenes is seeing her in the bathroom smoking a cigarette as she brazenly watches him take a shower, utterly fixated on what she sees, enamored by his muscular physique.  But Rachel also falls for his 4-year old daughter Leila (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves), becoming utterly devoted, taking on the role of the surrogate mother, where a recurring scene is picking Leila up after judo practice, along with the other mothers, each holding a snack to give to their children, like a kind of reward.  The complexity of the relationship is constantly tested, with Leila missing her own mother Alice (Chiara Mastroianni), not really comprehending why she’s not around, where these kinds of consequences are difficult on everyone.  They decide to take a weekend excursion to Camargue, a Southern coastal marshland, part of the Rhône delta of wetlands, ponds, and sandbars known for migrating birds, ferocious mosquitos, and flamingos, but most especially The White Horses of Camargue, which are native to the region, often seen roaming on their own, blending into the natural beauty of the landscape.  On the train ride back, Leila seems to embrace Rachel, OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN | Exclusive Clip | Music Box Films YouTube (1:01), but she just as mysteriously pitches a fit over her missing mother.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is seeing 92-year old documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman (who lives in Paris) in the French-speaking role of Rachel’s elderly gynecologist, who makes it abundantly clear that she has a limited time to start her own family, suggesting that she needs to think of months as years, with a diminished period of fertility, as her mother had a history of premature menopause, so this adds extra pressure to her mindset and to the relationship, as she’s simply running out of time.  The title of the film embellishes this sense of urgency, as Rachel begins identifying with “other people’s children,” including her sister Louana, where the sequence in the hospital following childbirth is especially poignant, adding another layer of intensity for both Rachel and the viewing audience, shifting the focus, becoming more prominently featured near the end of the film, adding an element of pathos.

Two things immediately stand out, the extremely eclectic musical score, offering a formal classicism that was not part of her earlier films, and is used quite effectively here, with the film opening to the atonal piano sounds of Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Monk - Pannonica - YouTube (9:04), where the excitement of love is expressed by the enthralling music of Vivaldi - Mandolin Concerto in C Major, RV 425, I. Allegro YouTube (2:48), which was provocatively featured by Truffaut in The Bride Wore Black (La mariée était en noir) (1968), while the music of Dave Van Ronk beautifully encapsulates an alluring slow dance at a party, Dave Van Ronk - "Cocaine Blues" - YouTube (4:19), while we also hear Doris Day’s melancholic Again - YouTube (2:47), Yves Simon - Nous partirons, nous deux - YouTube (3:51), ending with Georges Moustaki’s breezy cover of the Antonio Carlos Jobim song, Georges Moustaki - Les eaux de Mars - YouTube (3:45), which gives you an idea of the extensive range of emotion the director was going for.  The other is the way actress Virginie Efira was filmed, almost always in close-up, featuring long, pensive glances, where she resembles a model more than an actress.  Clearly the director is having a love affair with her face, which then extends to the audience, where this is a prominently featured example of the female gaze.  Shot by Zlotowski’s longtime cinematographer, Georges Lechaptois, who also shot Bruno Dumont’s TWENTYNINE PALMS (2003) during his American excursion, that everpresent smile defines Rachel’s outer countenance, perhaps hiding what she really feels, which remains a mystery, becoming more muted and subdued when she doesn’t get pregnant.  Adding to the degree of discomfort is the returning presence of Alice, who often turns up unexpectedly, sending her own relationship with Ali into a tailspin of confusion, OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN (2023) | Virginie Efira, French | Drama Movie YouTube (55 seconds), with Ali remaining ambivalent about how he feels, apparently content to juggle two women in his life, which simply doesn’t work for Rachel, who grows increasingly distant.  The rapturous opening is followed by a more sober study of shared child custody, taking the film in a decidedly different direction, transforming into a complex yet low-key drama about motherhood and how it effects women differently, with Rachel missing out on what she calls “the collective experience” of motherhood.  One aspect that is never addressed is the mixing of the cultures, where Ali is presumably Muslim, while Rachel is Jewish, where keeping traditions intact is part of both, yet the director chooses to leave that unexplored.  Instead Zlotowski has conceived a film that addresses this void in a woman’s life, longing for but not having a child of her own, where she develops maternal feelings by association, which is simply not the same, especially once a relationship loses steam, often disappearing from that non-biological child’s life, experiencing a feeling of distance and loss, even from herself, where she’s left incomplete, with so many questions unanswered.  This is a different kind of film, running the gauntlet from elation to alienation, where it’s mostly an unexplored subject in films, which typically feature the actual parent, with the director offering her own vision and cinematic expression, where there’s even a surprising epilogue, adding yet another perspective, but it still feels like the film skates around the issue.  

Falcon Lake

 

Director Charlotte Le Bon

Le Bon with young actor Joseph Engel

The director on the set

Le Bon with Sara Montpetit and Joseph Engel

FALCON LAKE                    B                                                                                                Canada  France  (100 mi)  2022  d: Charlotte Le Bon

If you feel the stories, it’s because they exist.                                                                             —Chloé (Sara Montpetit)

Premiering at Director’s Fortnight at Cannes in 2022, this is ostensibly a ghost story taking place over a summer holiday, where awakened sexual desires give rise to darker impulses, where a shadowy netherworld that feels ethereal and dreamlike seems to follow several of these characters around, but they are the only ones attuned to it.  “You have to be intelligent to find others intelligent,” said French Canadian director Charlotte Le Bon when she appeared at the Toronto Film Festival at the opening screening of her first feature film.  Growing up in Québec before moving to Paris, Le Bon worked as an actress for various French directors while also exploring her passion for art, developing a taste for strangeness through paintings, drawings, and lithographs.  She wrote and directed her first short film JUDITH HOTEL (2018), which invited the strangeness and the dreamlike when it premiered at Cannes.  Co-written by the director with François Choquet, shot by Kristof Brandl on grainy 16mm, with its use of the 4:3 format, a limited amount of time on each reel, and its twilight atmosphere, it evokes the horror genre, recalling the slasher films of cabin-in-the-woods settings, with posters for Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Murnau’s NOSFERATU (1922) on a bedroom wall, and an electronic score from Stockholm-based pianist and composer Shida Shahabi creating layers of tension and suspense, accentuating a disconcertingly eerie mood, where the ruminative, atmospherically dense drama subverts the coming-of-age drama with an everpresent sense of dread.  Seen through the brooding eyes of Bastien (Joseph Engel), a shy 13-year old Parisian who is on holiday with his family renting a cabin in rural Quebec, a young boy with delicate sensibilities, he is enthralled with and becomes increasing close to Chloé (Sara Montpetit), the more outgoing and often idiosyncratic 16-year-old daughter of an old friend of his mother, with both families sharing the same cabin.  Like many films shot today, it has a realist aesthetic, where the minimalist narrative is overshadowed by an infused atmospheric tension, almost like a John Carpenter film, recalling Robert David Mitchell’s It Follows (2014), yet more muted and understated, as it unravels in a different direction, defying all expectations, choosing to focus on the developing romance, as we get a feel for Bastien’s growing interest, never veering into male gaze territory.  Parents have a peripheral role and are barely seen, while secondary characters are similarly viewed as inessential, as the entire focus is on the two kids, who apparently have free reign on what they choose to do each day, which includes partying and interacting with older kids in the area, continually exposing Bastien’s naïve vulnerability, while Chloé is more easily drawn into their world.  Nothing is ever spelled out, as things seemingly happen spontaneously, where it’s clear Bastien is often in over his head, nicknamed Houdini by the older boys due to his disappearing act, vanishing without a word, but he plays along, mostly as a passively interested observer who tries to act with confidence, yet he’s drawn into something he doesn’t really understand.  Chloé’s free and easy manner is like a siren’s song, offering a sexual allure that he can’t help but be mesmerized by, but she also disappears at the drop of a hat, only to return home late at night, often disheveled or inebriated, with Bastien, along with his five-year-old brother Titi (Thomas Laperriere), surprisingly sharing her bedroom, so she’s on his mind 24-hours per day.       

The gist of the film is an alternatingly sunny or rainy and stormy summer retreat, far away from the conventions of the world, literally inhabiting an isolated lake tucked beneath the natural surroundings of old-growth forests, mostly shot in and around Gore, Québec, which is part of the mountainous Laurentides region.  According to Chloé, the lake is haunted, suggesting it’s part of the mythology of the region, something the older kids joke about and make mocking reference to, as most ignore that kind of stuff as mere talk, never really taking it seriously.  Bastien’s connection to Chloé lures him into this superstition, as it’s something she talks about frequently, a fan of folklore and local legends, believing the ghost of a drowned child is haunting the lake.  Accordingly, the opening image feels haunted, as we’re seeing what appears to be a dead body face-down in a lake, with the movie title appearing on the screen in Gothic lettering, but then just as mysteriously the body comes alive, bursting with life and movement, challenging our expectations, yet that ominous omen sticks with viewers throughout the entire film, becoming a melancholic reflection on death, with recurring images of dead trees, making us question the façade of summer bliss.  Adapted from the graphic novel Une Soeur by Bastien Vivès, the slowly developing, symbolically charged film is moody and subtly layered, never in a hurry to get anywhere, building a sensuous mood of intoxication through aroused teenage curiosity, becoming a character study that hints at something lurking underneath, mostly told through the power of suggestion, evocative of a tone poem, perfectly capturing the haunting nature of adolescence and young love, a time of awkwardness, hope, and exploration, with hormones racing through your body, where you are left with an alienated sense of unease, as lyrical passages build to sustain a mood, The Beauty Of Falcon Lake YouTube (3:29).  While there are feelings expressed about being left alone or not belonging anywhere, with feelings of strangeness and solitude, the two have an unusual chemistry, most all of it unspoken, where there’s a coming-of-age aspect of immediate attraction, as she invites him into her bad and even shares a bath, with no signs of vulgarity, yet there are also banal moments of tedium, mostly provided by the adults, as it’s clear the wonders of teenage life exists in a parallel space with a completely different intensity level.  Much of this is shot at night, with the characters becoming nocturnal shadows alone in the dark, dreamlike reflections of our inner soul, with supernatural undertones, where the hushed music accentuates the restlessness of youth, broken down into the fleeting moments of new experiences, beautifully captured in this brief moment when two shadows merge into one, A scene from Falcon Lake (2022) YouTube (42 seconds).  This film is not built through dialogue, but in short, fragmented conversations, accentuating small, near indecipherable moments held by the camera, as emotional cues are gleaned through silences, facial expressions, and subtle glances between characters.  Despite playing the festival circuit, this film has barely been seen around the world, with next to no promotion and little fanfare, given an extremely limited release.      

At least initially, Bastien has no interest in being there, feeling more like he’s being dragged along by his parents, spending much of his time wearing headphones, an easy escape from reality.  Chloé pretty much ignores him at first, more drawn to hanging out with the older kids, but they also disappoint, feeling more like immature, sex-craved boys, where their behavior is utterly predictable, as all they care about is drinking, drugs, parties, and opportunities for sex.  Perhaps seeing a part of herself in Bastien, as he’s mostly aloof and standoffish, feeling anxiety from peer pressure, a place she often finds herself as well, routinely discovering that she never fits in, that she’s somehow different, causing her to stand apart.  But from what we can see, that’s to her credit, as these older boys are a dime a dozen with zero personality, where you can find them pretty much anywhere, so spending time with Bastien allows them both to explore undiscovered waters.  At least initially, she takes him under her wing, drinking stolen alcohol for probably the first time, and the results are what you might expect, but their rebelliousness brings them closer together, quickly establishing some trust.  She invites him to tag along at a party, using him as a safety net with older friends, which allows her to defy expectations with no repercussions.  She’s fascinated by the macabre, filling his head with ghost stories, Exclusive Clip - The Ghost of Falcon Lake YouTube (1:56), which allows them to stage a fake death, while they also play at scaring each other by disguising themselves as ghosts, wearing a simple white sheet, which becomes part of their normal routine.  None of this feels particularly spooky or foreboding, but is more in line with kid behavior.  It’s the musical soundtrack, however, and the way it is filmed that reminds us of the darker implications.  This feels like a unique way to express teenage anxieties, cloaked in an underlying interest in morbidity, where the spectral world of ghosts channels their inner thoughts.  Her mother thinks she’s only seeking attention, while a boy she likes calls her childish, suggesting she likes to embellish the truth, calling into question what she’s really like and who she really is, but Bastien is the real conveyor of teenage angst, as without Chloé, he has pretty much nobody, leaving him alone on an island, where she is his sole lifeline, while she’s able to find a circle of friends, even if she detests them much of the time, viewing her as an object of conquest rather than demonstrating any romantic inclinations.  With Bastien it’s different, as she’s calling the shots, where at least in her eyes, he’s a safe alternative to the boorish advances of the older boys.  For him, it feels like she literally fell into his lap, like an apparition consuming him day and night, and he’s uncomfortable sharing her with others, as he’d prefer to have her all for himself, but in that regard he often finds himself as the odd man out.  In the end, there’s a weird twist that may catch some offguard, like a shock to the system, with the lake bordering upon the real and the fantastic, where the power of suggestion looms large, but the artful ambiguity gets right to the heart of the matter, even as nothing is ever explained.  It’s a poetic touch that caps off a multilayered challenge to the senses, feeling like something audacious and authentic at the same time.  Winner of the Best New Director’s award at the 2022 Chicago Film Festival, “Charlotte Le Bon’s film respects the point of view of the protagonist without condescension, conveying the youthful maturity of the characters with energy and poise.  Featuring unexpected moments of humor and repose, this warm coming of age story offers keen observations about the complexity of emotions that come with adulthood.”