Voyage en Deuce

 

Director Michel Deville

VOYAGE EN DOUCE         A-                                                                                            France  (98 mi)  1980  d: Michel Deville

What women talk about when men aren’t around.                                                                        —film tagline

Michel Deville found great critical and box-office success in France, perhaps achieving his greatest success with LA LECTRICE (THE READER) in 1988, but was relatively unknown abroad, never to achieve the international notoriety of New Wave contemporaries like Godard or Truffaut.  While made in 1980, this film is reminiscent of the playful spirit of the 60’s, which was a decade obsessed with frequent flashbacks, an aesthetic that felt so liberating at the time, like an ode to freedom, including the dizzying flashback sequences in Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962), Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963), Wojciech Has’ THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT (1965), Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968), or Robert Enrico’s ZITA (1968), and curious narrative experimentation in the early 70’s from Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau) (1974), which this film emulates, where music seems to open an imaginary portal into the world of erotic daydreams through an elegant use of Beethoven Bagatelles (Beethoven: 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126 - 4. Presto - YouTube 4:18) played by Katia Labèque that provide a seductive, A Midsummer Night’s Dream spirit of reverie.  The lightness of touch is compelling, essentially the story of two women, friends since childhood, who relate to each other with such a tender affection, exquisitely expressed by the performances of Dominique Sanda and Geraldine Chaplin, with Sanda so riveting in Bresson’s Une Femme Douce (1969) and also Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Il Conformista) (1970) and 1900 NOVACENTO (1976), while Chaplin, the daughter of Charlie Chaplin who is best known for her ditzy, off-kilter performances of unstable characters, worked with Robert Altman in Nashville (1975) and A Wedding (1978), as well as Alan Rudolph in WELCOME TO L.A. (1976).  Hélène (Sanda) and Lucie (Chaplin) are both married, Hélène with two young children and Lucie childless, but like so many of us, their lives fall short of their youthful expectations.  Deville shows a distinctive interest in developing the female characters by exploring personality traits, as the blond Hélène is bolder, more outwardly aggressive yet culturally refined and sophisticated, a writer of children’s books, showing endless signs of being curiously inquisitive, while the brunette Lucie is fragile, emotionally torn, more easily hurt and brought to tears, something of a drama queen and prone to exaggerate, pampered and groomed by Hélène, with both exuding a charm filled with alluring feminine mysteries, as Deville displays a unique ability to direct women onscreen.  While this film is directed by a man, it’s a sensuous exploration of female desires and recollections, mostly seen through the eyes of Hélène, whose sexual fantasies are sensuously visualized on the screen, told in a very literary style, notable for its episodic flashback structure, derived from 15 different anecdotes by 15 different French writers of both sexes.  There is no limit to the reach of fantasy, especially in contrast to the banality of our lives, yet this film allows a deeply repressed sensuality and sensitivity to resurface, showing none of the surreal sexual perversity of Buñuel, as this is more tastefully refined, more character driven, where the luxurious beauty of the sunny French Provencal landscape is cleverly integrated into the dreaminess of the storyline. 

When Deville decided to become a film director, he asked Cahiers du Cinéma magazine editor Éric Rohmer, whose articles he appreciated, to cowrite his first film with him, but Rohmer was already working on The Sign of Leo (Le signe du lion) (1959), so instead he decided to work hand-in-hand with editor Nina Companeez, who was particularly gifted in dialogue, and the two ended up collaborating on 12 films together.  He also discovered another major influence, costume designer, assistant, producer, and cowriter Rosalinde Damamme, who he ended up marrying, so there is a distinct woman’s touch in this film.  Opening with a sensuous concert performance of Brahms Lieder by British soprano Valerie Masterson, Christa Ludwig sings Brahms "Sapphische Ode" - YouTube (2:59), it opens yet quickly departs from the conventional male gaze, where a point-of-view shot of a man sitting in front row seats next to Hélène drifts to the singer’s cleavage, where it appears she’s singing just for him, with everyone else erased from the room, ending with a long shot of the concert hall where all have left except this privileged male viewer and the singer still onstage locked in his gaze.  This diversion from reality sets the tone, disconnected from the rest of the storyline, but it does exemplify how the mind wanders into its own realm, as if on its own, where the essence of this film blends eroticism into elaborately realized flashback sequences, with men primarily relegated to the background, becoming more of an attempt to explore the female psyche.  Afterwards Hélène discovers Lucie sitting outside her door, terribly distraught and in tears after an argument with her husband, convinced its time to leave him, though what she describes hardly seems like grounds to break up, instead she’s unhappy with the trajectory of her own life, and he’s easiest to blame.  Hélène listens intently, but has to laugh when she discovers much of what she hears is completely made up, thinking a road trip is the right medicine, that it will nourish and revitalize the soul, so the two women decide to take a road trip from Paris to southern Provencal in search of a summer house to rent. The brief glimpse we have of Hélène’s home life paints a portrait of domestic happiness, yet it also feels equally restricted by societal convention.  So their trip is defined by an exchange of fantasies and flirtations, both real and imagined, which are smart and engaging, though nothing is ever clarified or spelled out, with reveries and flashbacks replacing a conventional narrative, as both women attempt to fill an emotional void, tenderly narrated by each women, opening up a more adventurous and risky world that has been notably absent from their more cautious lives, where the journey is an opportunity to taste undiscovered freedom, filled with eye-opening, voyeuristic revelations that may haunt viewers for years to come.             

Once they hit the road, a passing train, like in an Antonioni movie, evokes a fleeting childhood memory that suddenly resurfaces with its intensity intact, with Marion Gautier (Hélène at fifteen years old) and Myriam Roulet (Lucie at fifteen years old), offering personalized insight that literally teases audiences with a provocative sexual subtext, recalling the innocence of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Valerie a týden divu) (1970), though channeled through a modern sensibility when expressed as an adult.  The closeness of the women is never in dispute, displaying surprising tenderness and affection, with titillating signs of a lesbian romance that is only hinted at and never realized.  Sanda is exquisitely sensual in her aloof beauty, appearing soft and cool, while the nervously impatient Chaplin is allowed to expand her range, delivering one of her career best performances, as the women flirtatiously dance around each other throughout their escapades.  In one encounter, Hélène coaches an adolescent male waiter delivering room service, both lying in bed in their hotel room, on the proper technique to kiss a woman, instructing him to pay attention to the surrounding erogenous zones, inflaming her desire merely by insinuating what’s about to occur, which has the effect of stimulating his own desire, which they teasingly make fun of, taking advantage of his youthful inexperience, exiting in a flurry of embarrassed humiliation.  In another rather amusing yet inflinching moment, Hélène sits around a table of elderly grandmothers sipping tea and starts masturbating, which they don’t even notice.  This sense of manipulative provocation empowers both of them, taking delight in exploring the beauty of the French countryside as they visit several picturesque houses, with Hélène photographing Lucie in the idyllic surroundings, who gets in the mood by getting au natural before the camera, telling stories that are tinged with fantasy, allowing them to play out in the viewer’s imaginations through the eloquent narrations while also seeing a luminous visualization, with the Beethoven piano music beautifully providing the texture of these sensitive stories.  As they explore their friendship, which encapsulates their lives, the mood shifts on a dime as Lucie recalls a horrific rape, which is heard on audio only, playing out the excruciatingly ugly details, think Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (Irréversible) (2002), while Lucie and Helene are seen in a series of elegantly composed long shots walking slowly through the countryside in an idyllic setting of pastoral serenity.  The chilling effect of how this moment is realized is simply stunning, as it taps into a full range of raw emotions that defines just how well executed this small gem of a film really is, remaining imprinted into our imaginations, even after the passing of nearly half a century.  By the end of the film we return to the male gaze, and it feels so astonishingly different, with the women switching places, as the two personalities blend into one, having reconsidered and reevaluated their lives, with Lucie dutifully returning to her husband while Hélène sits on the landing outside her own door, having shed that former persona, now seeing herself in a new and completely different light.  Boldly adventurous, daring to go where few films are willing to go today, as the use of nudity is sparing, but effective, an unforgettable experience from such an impressionistic, female-forwarded film that resounds with such astute artistry.

The Conformist (Il Conformista)

Dominique Sanda on the set of The Conformist (1970) with director Bernardo Bertolucci

THE CONFORMIST (Il Conformista)             A                    

Italy  France  Germany  (107 mi)  1970  d:  Bernardo Bertolucci           

restored in 1995 to (111 mi)

A marriage of direction and cinematography, this is one of the more sumptuously beautiful films in all of cinema, an extraordinarily stylized mix of sexualization and politics that become fused in a cinematic explosion, a candidate for one of the greatest films ever made, perhaps the singlemost influential movie of our times, without which we would not have Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), with the director insisting upon the same cinematographer after having seen this film, or THE GODFATHER (1971, 1974, 1990) saga, which utilizes the same luxurious richness of color along with similar attention to costumes and art design.  Along the lines of CITIZEN KANE (1941), Bertolucci’s film is a monumental collaboration of artistic expression on a grand scale, utilizing the breathtaking photography of Vittorio Storaro, the exquisite elegance of art director Ferdinando Scarfiotti, and the sublime 1930’s-era French costume designs by Gitt Magrini, not to mention a musical score from Georges Delerue.  One of the memorable central scenes of the film was even recreated in a Soprano’s (1999 – 2007) third season episode entitled Pine Barrens directed by Steve Buscemi.  Adapting a 1947 novel by Italian writer Albert Moravia, who also wrote the novel that inspired Godard’s CONTEMPT (1963), the author is known for his psychological realism and open treatment of sexuality that reflect the anxieties of contemporary times.  Moravia’s novel was inspired by the 1937 assassination of two of his cousins in Paris who had been working for the French resistance movement.  Opening in 1938 in Rome, the story concerns a central protagonist Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who identifies with the prevailing political group in power and tries to normalize himself behind a mask of fascist aristocracy, who is petrified at the idea he is a homosexual, making him feel different, like he has something to hide from the world.  While the reasons aren’t initially clear, we learn through flashbacks that he’s been traumatized by a childhood incident where he was sexually abused by a family chauffeur, Pasqualino “Lino” Seminara, Pierre Clémenti from BELLE DE JOUR (1967), where Clerici accidentally shot him with his own gun, continually thinking of himself afterwards as a killer and an assassin. 

The restless inner workings underneath the narrative continually altering the time structure hold an essential key to understanding what is a remarkable character study.  Tormented by memories of his childhood, history intrudes into Clerici’s real life, where the often repressed subconscious rises out of its hibernation with a powerful impact.  While the actual structure of the film may not have been determined until the editing room, Bertolucci adopts a complicated flashback technique, constantly shifting backwards and forwards in time, reflecting Clerici’s anxiety-ridden state of mind, as the director’s love for extended sequences are constantly interrupted by informative childhood flashback sequences that comment upon the present, where his family life was also marked by equally decadent and mentally unstable parents.  These experiences have left him feeling uneasy and uncomfortable in his own skin, where Clerici’s response to his clearly dysfunctional childhood is to hide from it by acting as normal as possible.  To this end, Clerici embraces Italian fascism and joins the Secret Service, where to be a conformist is to be a fascist.  It is not enough, however to join the ranks of the organization, as instead his role is to seek out anti-fascists, where he is assigned the job to assassinate his former teacher, leftist Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), who has fled to Paris in exile where his powerful voice constantly railing against Mussolini must be silenced.  In contrast to the claustrophobic look of Italy, Paris is expressed as the city of freedom and openness, a veritable fashion center of the world suddenly bursting with a surreal use of color, an altered sense of reality, perfectly represented by the professor’s wife, Dominique Sanda as Anna, the French wife of an intellectual with lesbian tendencies, who represents glamor and beauty, everything Clerici refuses to be, as she is the exact opposite of the wife he chooses.  Stefania Sandrelli is Giulia, equally beautiful but a thoughtless, conventional-minded woman who avoids asking questions about his career, the most perfectly content middle class wife for Clerici who craves a traditional marriage, one whose entire background is grounded in family, church, position, and moral values.  Clerici uses his own honeymoon in Paris as the time and place to carry out his assignment, where the newlyweds take a train ride to Paris with the sunlight bursting through the window, accompanied by fellow Italian agent Manganiello (Gastone Moschin) who follows his every move throughout, handing him a gun with a silencer at the Italian-French border.     

Trintignant is such a perfect choice, immersing himself in the role, as he’s an actor who specializes in being an everyman who can pass through the streets unnoticed, yet exudes intelligence, remaining quietly thoughtful and reflective.  As Clerici he’s something of a ghost of a human being, carrying around his hidden secrets inside him that churn around in his anxious and unsettled frame of mind, like his secret attraction to Anna, who is introduced earlier in brief sequences, once in the fascist ministry and again in an Italian brothel, where she exists almost as a fantasy, an ideal woman who exists in a mystery.  Bertolucci’s recreation of Paris in the 30’s shows his love for such a grand period of cinema, reflected in the sensuality of the women’s costumes and their indulgence into Parisian glamor, where not everything is seen in a conscious way, but the continual brilliance of the atmospheric mood intercedes into reality.  In this vein, one of the strangest scenes in the film is Clerici’s Italian wedding party, called the “dance of the blind” sequence, which was initially cut in the Italian release, but was actually shot in an underground basement location where you can see the feet of people walking by through the street-level windows, a graphic representation of the subconscious.  In addition, it includes a large group of blind people in sunglasses, friends of Italo (José Quaglio), Clerici’s blind friend, a fascist that runs a radio station, a reflection of the blind populace that voted for Mussolini, yet the banquet scene is shot in an exotic party atmosphere with streamers and different colored hanging Chinese lanterns.  Clerici visits his parents before he leaves for Paris, where his mother is a morphine addict living in a decaying villa surrounded by unswept leaves blowing in the wind while his father is confined to an insane asylum, shown in an outdoor scene at the Palazzo dei Congressi, originally constructed for the 1942 world’s fair, but cancelled due to Italy’s involvement in the war.  Bertolucci utilizes the surviving architecture and décor of the period, where this EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma) district in Rome is a remnant of the architectural dream of Mussolini, as it was built to celebrate twenty years of fascism. 

Armond White from The New York Press, Before The Devolution | Manhattan, New York ... - NY Press      

Three geniuses teamed up to create The Conformist: director Bernardo Bertolucci, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro and designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti. Their 1970 collaboration was as momentous as the work of Welles & company on Citizen Kane, showing a new generation how to look at movies. This was quite a feat after the many high-art film innovations of the 50s and 60s. BSS synthesized it all—playing with edited time, color, space, form—and then upped the stakes: taking modern cinema back to the arch romanticism of the silent era. In 1970 no one had ever seen a color movie that was as much a visual phenomenon. And it’s still a knock-out. This week’s rerelease at Film Forum proves that The Conformist has been the single most influential movie of the past 35 years.

It came before the de-volution. Bertolucci, Storaro and Scarfiotti worked with the belief (now gradually eroding in the digitial-video age) that cinema was, foremost, a visual art form; that its richest meanings and distinctive impact were the result of images. Images designed to amaze, ideas expressed through illustration, emotion conveyed through the tonalities of light. All that is now taken for granted through today’s barbaric video practices where indie films look like home movies. Watching The Conformist is, more than ever, like being a starving man widening his eyes at a king’s feast. The mist-shrouded view of the Eiffel Tower, the stroboscopic train ride, the high-contrast scenes in a radio studio and many other memorable sequences reawaken one’s senses. You seem to taste “cinema” for the first time.

By the time Clerici contacts the professor in Paris, cineastes will appreciate that the professor’s address and phone number actually belonged to none other than French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard.  While he’s immediately attracted to the professor’s wife, she’s more interested in spending time with Giulia, seen pampering her on a Parisian shopping spree throughout the afternoon while Clerici has his private meeting with the professor, reminding him of his college thesis on the myth of Plato’s cave (Allegory of the Cave), shifting the light in the room, becoming a standing shadow himself, beautifully visualizing a metaphor while commenting on the illusions of politics and sexual desire.  In the myth, enchained prisoners see reflections of themselves on the walls of a cave illuminated by a burning fire, mistaking their shadows for reality.  It’s a unique separation of light and darkness, between the divine and a human being, where light is a form of consciousness, while darkness reveals the unknown, something that must remain hidden.  Clerici’s privately repressed lust for Anna is revealed through peep-hole sequences, where he’s seen spying on her in various states of undress, where both she and the professor are aware of Clerici’s fascist sympathies and the danger he represents, where Anna’s pursuit of Giulia may largely be for the benefit of Clerici’s roving male eyes.  Both women dress extravagantly for an evening dinner and dance engagement, where the virtuosity of Bertolucci’s gliding camera style is especially evident in the operatic dance sequence bathed in a sensuous texture as the two women are entwined in a feverish, erotically charged dance that unleashes itself in an orgiastic frenzy.  This leads to a scene in the snowy woods the following day, exhibiting some of the most exquisite use of light and shadow in a motion picture, where the assassination attempt is eloquently photographed as cinematic art — glorious, powerful, and dramatically effective.  With sunlight streaming through the trees, the set-up itself is breathtaking to behold, where time literally stops when the optimum moment is at hand.  In the lingering stillness, the psychological intrigue accelerates through the agitated inner workings of the killer’s mind, with the viewer wondering where his sympathies lie, but the seemingly peaceful calm is broken by the decisive brutality of the events, turning into one of the more stunning scenes of the film. 

While the entire film is shot in a dizzying array of crisscrossing angles that parallel the freely moving flashback technique, it’s a fairly simplistic story told in a beguilingly complex manner, delving into all manner of Freudian psychosexual issues concerning a confused and cowardly man who has for years tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, vowing to “build a normal life” for himself, yet his very soul hinges on the thought of sexual panic.  The extreme aesthetic, with an elaborate color scheme, exotic use of light, and the grandeur of nature on display seem to taunt Clerici’s narrowly skewed interests, where the moral turmoil of his political and sexual confusion eventually become overwhelming, especially as time jumps ahead to the fascist defeat, which completely undercuts his fabricated life and everything he’s stood for, exposing his failures, along with others like him whose unquestioned following of a brutal regime allowed fascism to flourish.  In the aftermath of Mussolini’s death, when he suddenly sees the man on the street that he thought he had killed earlier in his life, Lino the chauffeur, still alive and trying to seduce another young man, he becomes unhinged, as if he has an internal explosion, publicly denouncing all his former friends as traitors, homosexuals, and murderous accomplices.  While the film is an indictment of hypocrisy and fascism, not to mention conformism as a means of finding a safe haven, it is also a tragic psychosexual descent into utter futility, as all his life Clerici’s constant desire to sacrifice his values and surround himself in a normal life of anonymity was based on the idea that he was different, that he was molested and abused, little more than damaged goods in an otherwise decent and moral society.  Liberation has always been conformity’s constant enemy, and now suddenly he finds himself alone in a world that makes no sense, where he’s a stranger literally to himself, unaccepted by the new prevailing order, refusing to identify with the collaborating enemy within, shaking his feeble, weak-willed spirit to the core, where his biggest fear rises to the surface and once again looms mysteriously over his life, powerless to turn away, lost in an ambiguous fog of illusion, paralyzed, helpless and impotent.