Things to Come (L'avenir)

Director Mia Hansen-Love

 

THINGS TO COME (L'avenir)                      C+                  

France  Germany  (100 mi)  2016  d:  Mia Hansen-Love      Les Films du Losange [France]

Anyway, after 40 women are fit for the trash.

—Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert)

Despite winning a Silver Bear Best Director award at Berlin from a jury headed by Meryl Streep, this film may be the lone disappointment in the short career of Mia Hansen-Løve, who has built a career making meticulous, observational films that become intimate character studies, where part of the joy of her films is veering into the unexpected, where by the end of the journey, you’ve entered some sort of forbidden or unanticipated territory that would have been impossible to predict from the outset, where in her last two films, for instance, Goodbye First Love (Un Amour de Jeunesse) (2011) and Eden (2014), the primary characters have no way of anticipating how their lives would turn out, as it’s nothing close to what they originally dreamed or imagined.  While that’s partly true here, what’s missing is any hint of the unexpected, as this utterly conventional film couldn’t be more predictable, and while it’s a contemplative portrait of womanhood, where a husband’s mid-life crisis leaves a woman’s marriage on the rocks, finding herself suddenly isolated and alone, there’s never any doubt that the woman in question would land on her feet.  And while she thought she would remain married forever, she’s always been a strong independent thinker, capable of making her own life decisions, exemplified by the fierce independence of actress Isabelle Huppert, whose fearlessness in taking on roles boggles the imagination.  Is there a more commanding screen presence than Isabelle Huppert?  So is it any wonder that she survives so convincingly, with her wounded pride and dignity in tact?  It’s never really an issue.  As a result, there isn’t an ounce of suspense to this film, where instead it meanders into muddled territory, name-dropping books and philosophers without any intellectual curiosity or exploration, where they simply become part of the overall narrative.   What this film lacks is any sense of risk or danger, even in the student radicals portrayed, as they all lead a life of comfort, where their lifestyle, ability to earn a living, or freedom to express themselves is never threatened.  What all the characters in the film have in common is a white middle class, overprotected life of privilege and comfort, where they have every advantage, as all avenues of life are open to them, which they are free to explore.  Where’s the drama in this film?  Where’s the challenge to the viewer?  If it’s about life throwing us a curve, where in midlife we have to alter the direction of our lives, well, honestly, with divorce rates being so high, isn’t that fairly common, and isn’t it worse for those on the economic fringe, as they have so much more to lose?  What about all the people that lost their jobs and their homes in recent years from the worldwide economic crisis, or the flood of refugees leaving their former lives behind?  No one in this film gives a whit about any of them, as they are safely protected in their middle class bubble, where they don’t even have to think about such things.  

Essentially a one-woman show, a showcase of a single character, the film concerns a middle-aged Parisian high school philosophy teacher Nathalie Chazeau (Isabelle Huppert), appearing dedicated and comfortable in her role, where her philosophy textbook has been regarded as the standard in schools throughout France for years.  But the film opens off the coast of Brittany where Nathalie, her husband Heinz (André Marcon) who is also a philosophy professor at the same school, and their two younger children are visiting the grave of Chateaubriand, an author who is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature, which by itself is a mild stab at humor, as there is little fire or romance on display in their relationship which has grown soft and complacent through the years.  The film jumps ahead a few years to Paris in 2010, the Sarkozy era of pension reform strikes that affected universities across France, where we hear President Sarkozy give lip service to the problem in an attempt to quell a rising tide of resentment, “I am aware that people suffer.”  While students are protesting in the streets asking her to join their cause, which will actually benefit her, Nathalie strides right through the picket lines, undaunted by their spirit, sheltering the students in her class as well, indignantly shouting “Your talk of ‘68 is pathetic!”  Well, the idea of a student needing the help of a teacher to get through the picket lines is also fairly incomprehensible, as if students themselves have no free will.  This is one of many strange aspects to this film.  While Nathalie is an inspiring teacher that her students enthusiastically respect, she exhibits little passion in her work, as if it’s all been said before to generations earlier, where she’s simply reworking the same thoughts and phrases into the curriculum, where among her favorites is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment in 18th century Europe, whose political philosophy led to the French revolution and remains at the core of French values today.  As if mirroring the current social unrest, she offers a quote from his seminal work The Social Contract (1762), suggesting “If we take the term in the strict sense, there never has been a real democracy, and there never will be.  It is against the natural order for the many to govern and the few to be governed. […] Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic.  So perfect a government is not for men.”  Thought and reality merge from the same source for Nathalie, where if a question arises, she picks up a book, as evidenced by the overflowing bookshelf in her living room filled with philosophy books.  Totally dedicated to challenging her students, she sees her role as teaching young minds to think for themselves, to join a collective of similarly educated adults to form a more perfect society, where according to Rousseau, “Liberty is not inherent in any form of government, it is in the heart of the free man.”

However, things start pecking away at her more perfect world, throwing her life into turmoil, none more troubling than her aging mother, Édith Scob, always a delight, from Franju’s horror classic EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960), who neurotically buys expensive clothes in the wrong size and continually suffers panic attacks at all hours of the day and night, calling her daughter, calling for an ambulance, all signs that she’s unable to care for herself and needs a more professional setting with medical staff on hand.  In another blow, her publisher wants to redesign her philosophy textbook, with marketers discussing a more brightly accommodating color scheme to make it more inviting, eventually deciding to dump it altogether.  But the coup de grâce is the announcement from her philandering husband that he’s in love with someone else and will be moving out of the house, leaving her, effectively, all on her own.  The full effects of this dramatic earth shift is beautifully rendered by the profound sadness of Schubert Lieder, “Auf Dem Wasser Zu Singen (To Sing On Water),” Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; "Auf dem Wasser zu singen"; Franz Schubert YouTube (3:28), easily the most sublime moment of the film.

Ah, with dewy wings
On the rocking waves, time escapes from me
Tomorrow with shimmering wings
Like yesterday and today may time again escape from me,
Until I on towering, radiant wings
Myself escape from changing time.

The film goes into a freefall of exploratory acts, placing her mother in an assisted living facility while assuming the care of her aging black cat Pandora (which she tries to pawn off on others), while also temporarily joining an overly smug, former classroom student Fabien (Roman Kolinka) who has joined an anarchist collective living in a rural farm commune, interestingly playing the 1944 Woody Guthrie labor song Ship In The Sky - Woody Guthrie - YouTube (2:41) on the car stereo as they approach the mountain retreat, which she enthusiastically embraces, but he’s already sick of it, claiming it’s the only CD that works.  Once they arrive, Pandora immediately gets lost in the wild, with Nathalie amusingly more concerned about the cat than anything else, but Fabien assures her the cat can take care of itself, that survival instincts will kick in.  As if on cue, the cat proudly arrives with a mouse the next morning, demonstrating complete assurance in this new environment.  While an obvious metaphor for her own life, this entire segment feels like a step back in time, feeling overly pretentious, something never associated with a Mia Hansen-Løve film before, including the use of Donovan’s overly repetitive mantra Deep Peace - YouTube (3:11), spouting meaningless platitudes like “Denying reality won’t lead to a new way of thinking,” with books by Slavoj Žižek (Slavoj Žižek: 'Humanity is OK, but 99% of people are boring idiots ...) next to The Unabomber Manifesto in their library, suggesting all points of view are viable options as they attempt to align radical thought with action, yet Nathalie has absolutely no connection to any of them, so other than the cat sequence, much of this feels like a complete waste of time.  Without resorting to dramatics, it’s clear Nathalie isn’t going to suffer an emotional meltdown, but relies upon the solace and security of books, whose ideas have always held a major impact in her life.  There is an earlier tearful scene of her on the train, at a point when her life feels totally out of control, but when she sees her ex-husband with his new girlfriend out the window on the street, she bursts out with laughter, immediately restoring the balance.  This, in essence, is the film, a bourgeois midlife crisis showing equal parts vulnerability and resilience, becoming a feminist rebuke to fatalism.  The director has indicated the film grew out of her own experience with her parents, their ensuing separation, while observing her mother’s subsequent struggle to regain her emotional equilibrium.  In Nathalie’s case, her core foundation of philosophy and her love to inspire new generations of students helps alleviate any emotional crisis, as she’s perfectly comfortable relying on herself.  She does get a kick out of seeing her ex-husband suffer, conveniently leaving him out of family gatherings with their children, which they will always share, but she makes certain they don’t share them together.  Passing the torch to her newborn grandchild, seen crying uncontrollably, she comforts the child to the familiar refrains of “Unchained Melody,” Unchained Melody - The Fleetwoods - YouTube (2:47), which tenderly plays out over the end credits. 

2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #4 Holy Motors

HOLY MOTORS            A 

France  Germany  (115 mi)  2012  d:  Léos Carax

My guess is the more experience you have with cinema, the more you’ll like this film, which defies any narrative construction, yet continually exhilarates in its pure love and devotion to film language, much of it feeling like bits and pieces of old films all strewn together like broken parts to make something completely new.  Those with a need for rational explanation need not enter here, as to many this will simply not make sense, but certainly anyone who does give this a try can’t help but be blown away by the sheer originality and mad energy of the movie itself.  In other words you don’t even have to like it, but you can appreciate the unbridled joy with which this film was made, almost like a love letter to cinema itself.  Carax was once the boy wunderkind of cinema, where at 24 his first film Boy Meets Girl (1984), shot in black and white on location in Paris, won the Youth Award at Cannes, while his next Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood) (1986) was a post New Wave primary color extravaganza that won the Alfred Bauer Award at Berlin, an award given to a movie which opens new perspectives in film art.  Given a free reign over his next project, the boy wonder’s cost overruns created the most expensive French production in history, where production was halted several times before finally releasing the extravagant The Lovers of Pont-Neuf (Les Amants du Pont-Neuf) (1991), a sumptuous and romantic tribute to both Paris and lead actress Juliette Binoche, which was a colossal flop in Paris, not released internationally until 1999, thirteen years after his previous film.  When his next film POLA X (1999) was a huge flop as well, his career was all but finished, where we heard literally nothing about the man throughout the next decade, returning another thirteen years later to Cannes with this mammoth work that literally defies description, but is so ingeniously wacky that parts of the movie are simply off-the-charts hilarious, once again starring Denis Lavant as the director’s alter ego and stand-in for the creative force required to make an art film in the modern era.

This devoutly uninhibited film has such an edgy, stream-of conscious style that it likely summons different thoughts and ideas inside every head that shares this film experience, which plays out more like performance art, where Lavant is an outrageous chameleon-like character who literally takes on various disguises and different theatrical personas as he injects himself into the streets of Paris causing mayhem wherever he goes.  What’s intriguing straightaway is the viewer questions whether this character is even real or whether it’s some form of visiting spirit from a world beyond.  While this may not make sense to some, but it was reminiscent of The Phantom of the Opera, a scarred or disfigured character hidden from the world due to some deep personal tragedy or loss, living instead in a subterranean or alternate universe, which seems to be a blend of the future mixing with the past, where the connecting thread is the pure unadulterated joy of cinema.  Lavant is known by a half a dozen different names, but he’s driven around the streets of Paris in a white stretch limousine, where Édith Scob, the aged star of a French horror film more than 50 years ago, Georges Franju’s EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960), is the driver, also dressed all in white, including the color of her hair.  She may as well be the driver of dead souls, as she transports Lavant around town where he sits in the back and receives 8 daily case assignments one at a time, literally transforming himself into character for each assignment, where the limo is largely a dressing room on wheels, where Lavant spends most of his time getting perfectly into disguise, becoming the manifestation of faded roles from cinema history which might die out altogether if he didn’t attempt to resuscitate them back into the modern world.  Much like the use of memories in Last Year at Marienbad (L'Année Dernière à Marienb... (1961), which may die if not remembered, Lavant seems to be the reincarnation of near dead movie roles, literally attempting to breathe new life into them, but taken completely out of context when set on modern streets, where he is literally out of place, out of time, where people on the street are aghast at what they see.  

The mix of fabulously designed set pieces and on-site locations are part of the brilliance of the film, as Carax does create an otherworldly impression throughout, where never for a single moment does anyone in the audience have any idea what’s happening next, where the built-up intrigue of these imaginary characters and what they’re doing returning back to earth is befuddling to say the least, where even the actors onscreen seem in complete bewilderment at Lavant.  In one assignment, like a creature from the silent era, Lavant turns into a little green Leprechaun with bright orange hair, a hideous creature that never utters a word but instead makes weird animal sounds.  When he crawls out of a sewer and leaps into a crowd on the street, people back away in disgust, where a high fashion photographer is taking photos of Eva Mendes as an haute-cuture fashion model, a statuesque figure of beauty, but this beastly creature instantly grabs the photographer’s attention, where he orders one of his underlings to immediately sign the creature up for a photo shoot.  When she attempts to communicate with the monster, she ridiculously attempts to relate by asking if he’s ever heard of Diane Arbus, famous for taking pictures of giants, dwarfs, and other freaks of nature.  Lavant simply grabs the model and carries her off into his lair in the sewers beneath the city that exists in stillness and in silence.  In such a short period of time, the marvel of invention that occurs in front of the camera in this one sequence is wildly imaginative and extremely cinematic, using rousing music in much the same way there are frequent cinema homages, as Carax is simply re-inventing cinema by reconnecting all the unused pieces, much like reassembling all the broken body parts of mannequins that we see strewn around the empty warehouse settings.

Midway through his day, Lavant’s assignment book reads “Entracte,” or intermission, conjuring up quick images on early archival black and white film stock of a shirtless man peforming before a crowd, like a circus act, which quickly cuts to Lavant leading a march of accordion players "Let my Baby Ride" by Doctor L (RL Burnside Cover)- Holy Motors OST  YouTube (3:20), an utterly enthralling piece of music that literally comes out of nowhere adding a sense of exhilaration to the film.  Who knows where Carax comes up with these ideas, where Lavant enters a Tati-like modern glass designed skyscraper dressed in a glow in the dark outfit where he does outrageous MATRIX-like dances in a darkened room, where he receives instructions from an unseen voice, like Warren Beatty in Mickey One (1965), becoming highly experimental using a dazzling strobe light effect, eventually joined by a shapely woman contortionist who can bend her body like a pretzel, with Lavant somewhere entwined.  Using two cinematographers, Yves Cape and Caroline Champetier, the streets of Paris often become hallucinogenic-tinged, or the shapes of buildings literally melt, creating phantasmagoric images of a reality unfolding into itself, where the world is seen in utter transformation.  Purely by chance, Lavant runs into an old flame, where he wanted to use Binoche, who apparently would not agree, so director Claire Denis suggested he use Kylie Minogue, where they have an extended sequence together that feels altogether unworldly on the rooftops of Paris, a direct reference to Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge (2001) that starred Minogue, literally bringing in film segments from every bit of the director’s own imagination.  This may be too much for some, who may wonder what in the hell is going on, but this is a quintessential dip into the collective subconscious history of cinema, where the entire movie is a subliminal flash in time, spliced together using bits of broken pieces, where the finale with Lavant finally at home, innocently looking out his window at night feels like he’s just a kid waiting for the arrival of Peter Pan.