Both Sides of the Blade (Avec amour et acharnement)

 

Director Claire Denis

novelist Christine Angot

Denis with Angot and Juliette Binoche

Denis with Vincent Lindon and Binoche

Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (Avec amour et acharnement)         B+                                       aka:  Fire                                                                                                                                  France  (116 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: Claire Denis

She had lost herself somewhere along the frontier between her inventions, her stories, her fantasies and her true self.  The boundaries had become effaced, the tracks lost; she had walked into pure chaos, and not a chaos which carried her like the galloping of romantic riders in operas and legends, but which suddenly revealed the stage props: A papier-mache horse.   —Anaïs Nin, A Spy in the House of Love, 1954

A film that may haunt you for days, somehow changing the French title from With Love and Fury, which works extremely well, to the entitled Tindersticks song that concludes the film, Tindersticks - Both Sides of the Blade (Official Video) - YouTube (4:05), Claire Denis has made yet another boldly provocative film that dissects modern relationships with a curious eye, emphasizing betrayal and the fractious state of our lives, revealing how easily the past protrudes into the present, rupturing the status quo with a destabilizing force.  Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival, Denis won the Silver Bear as Best Director, with the film introduced under the title Fire, yet Denis strongly objected, claiming it was not fitting, choosing a better title that represented what the film is about.  Using familiar faces in Claire Denis films, co-written (with Denis) and adapted from Christine Angot’s 2018 novel, Un tournant de la vie, or A Turning Point in Life, Angot’s influence is built around introspective studies of women’s desire for men, as she is the same playwright of Let the Sunshine In (Un Beau Soleil Intérieur) (2017), both starring Juliette Binoche, among the more courageous actresses of our era, again playing a flawed woman making questionable choices, bringing back Vincent Lindon from VENDREDI SOIR (2002) and 2013 Top Ten List #6 Bastards (Les Salauds), Mati Diop from 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #1 35 Shots of Rum (2008), while in the same film Grégoire Colin was her boyfriend, making this his eighth appearance in a Denis film, only 16 when he first worked with her, also appearing in Nenette and Boni (Nénette et Boni) (1996), Beau Travail (1999), The Intruder (L’intrus) (2004), and 2013 Top Ten List #6 Bastards (Les Salauds).  Hardly a happy reunion, what starts out as an affectionate portrait of a healthy relationship suddenly turns sour, as Sara (Juliette Binoche) is a middle-age Parisian radio host who engages in constructive on-air social justice commentary, hosting real-life commentators that include Lebanese educator Hind Darwish and French soccer star-turned-activist Lilian Thuram, who discusses the idea of being locked into “white thinking,” a topic that turns into the disruptive impact of the French colonial past and how it continues to wreak havoc on the present, troublesome subjects that mirror the unraveling of this seemingly perfect relationship.  Sara is financially and professionally secure in her decade-long relationship with her unemployed boyfriend Jean (Vincent Lindon), a former professional rugby player with a prison record, but everything changes when Sara catches a random glance on the street of her ex-boyfriend François, Grégoire Colin, a heartthrob in DREAMLIFE FOR ANGELS (1998) and since then almost always playing the object of desire, unexpectedly reemerging after a ten-year absence, sending her into an emotional tailspin, bringing in a rush of new sensations that completely disrupt and alter her world, violating the opening Edenesque tranquility on the beaches of Corsica (apparently shot with an iPhone) that is so eloquently presented.  A long single take through a dark railway tunnel as the couple returns to Paris seems to have ominous implications, completely darkening their outlook, like one of those playful twists in Rivette’s CÉLINE AND JULIE GO BOATING (1974).  Ostensibly an elaborate character study constructed around the derailing repercussions spiraling out of control emanating from the dubiously shady François, a kind of nefarious film noir character that feels more like an apparition or a figment of the imagination, yet he forges a business relationship with Jean (deftly avoiding the prison sentence that Jean served), working as a talent scout identifying young developing rugby players.  The couple is haunted by his reappearance, not just a former lover of Sara’s but a former best friend of Jean’s, having left François for Jean, yet Sara is understandably ecstatic as she holds her emotions in check, with Binoche’s head poking through the bathroom door like an eerie reference to Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING (1980), Both Sides of the Blade (Avec amour et acharnement) new clip official from Berlin Film Festival 1/2 YouTube (1:27), outwardly pretending she has no ulterior motive while encouraging Jean that this might present an excellent opportunity, both dancing around the topic like a hot potato, each one hiding something.  Immediately red flags are raised, as a growing suspicion develops between the lead couple, yet never acknowledged, as they become more testy with each other, where there are signs everywhere that they blindly ignore, like Jean and François regularly meeting on the corner outside their apartment, never inviting him up, almost always conducting their business at night, Both Sides of the Blade (Avec amour et acharnement) new clip official from Berlin Film Festival 2/2 YouTube (44 seconds), creating a brooding, underlying tension that borders on a thriller.

Few filmmakers have been able to demonstrate the kind of range that Denis has managed to achieve throughout her career, from post-colonial explorations to innovative experimentations within various genres, a director who tends to work instinctively, developing relationships with her collaborators, and refuses to spell things out for her audience, yet broadens the reach of the “female gaze” in every picture while remaining an essential part of the contemporary landscape of cinema.  Part of her skill is amassing sensual detail as she poetically realizes texture and rhythm in establishing continually shifting moods, often wordlessly, leaving gaping holes in the narrative while finding new ways to tell stories, moving her characters around like chess pieces, yet one constant is just how intelligently she imbues each film with her own existentialist perspective.  While Christine Angot’s earlier work was a sex comedy, this is a darker subject, more exasperating, with Denis adding a female counterpoint to her male-dominated 2013 Top Ten List #6 Bastards (Les Salauds), plunging into the depths of personal destruction, exploring the intensely personal interiority of a love triangle, with Sara at the center, as her startled reaction at seeing François sets the story in motion, more of a melodramatic swoon, arousing something deeply unsettling stirring inside, drawing all three lives into a web of deception and desire as François tries to wedge his way back into her life, yet the obvious question is why does he matter so much?  Denis spares us the details, and only slowly provides any backstory, as all that matters is that her life implodes with a stunning force as she starts living a lie, exploring how love moves in unpredictable ways, often from one partner to the next.  It’s like watching poetry in motion to see the extent that Binoche becomes a master of artful deception, a heroine in distress yearning to test the waters once again, with the past coming back with a ferocity, reminding her of memories that have been missing in her life, though it happens imperceptibly at first.  The way she immediately succumbs at seeing him only heightens the significance of the mysterious François, kept out of sight mostly, allowing the inexplicable allure of his murky character to literally inhabit the couple, each in their own way, carefully concealing their private thoughts from the other, seemingly dwelling in darker spaces.  Creating a sports agency, they eventually choose a location for their business, having an opening night party with friends and family invited, yet Jean hesitates to invite Sara, as if afraid a spark might reignite, so he downplays this decision with Sara, acting casual, like she can certainly come if she wants, but he’ll be busy with invited guests, not really having time to spend with her.  This only heightens her anticipation, getting all worked up, vacillating between love and fury, unable to set foot inside, disturbed by what she’s really feeling, as she could publicly lose herself in the moment, so instead she remains outside, calling Jean, who puts François on the phone, and all bets are off, as she literally melts at the sound of his voice.  Agnès Godard has been the regular cinematographer for Claire Denis since 1990, providing that lushly visualized poetic texture she is known for, yet she was unavailable in 2021, so this is the director’s first venture with Éric Gautier, who worked on and off with Olivier Assayas, Arnaud Desplechin, and Alain Resnais, more recently with Jia Zhang-ke in Ash Is Purest White (Jiang hu er nv) (2018), utilizing close-ups with a sense of urgency, especially during heated arguments, with the camera holding close to Binoche’s remarkable reactions filled with naked emotion, a wise choice, subjecting each character with a sense of scrutiny, as it tells the interior story, seemingly trapped by the moment, exposing all underlying tensions.  Shot during the Covid pandemic, using only a few locations, revealing a somewhat desolate city, requiring occasional scenes with masks, one recurring visual motif is the use of the apartment balcony overlooking the rooftops of Paris, like a character unto itself, with the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur seen off in the distance, as Jean typically takes business calls from François out there as his own private domain, yet the invasion of that territorial space leads to disastrous consequences, culminating into a series of excruciating fights.       

Jean is a complex character, yet always authentic, carrying the weight of a man who has struggled in his life and found it difficult to be happy, with Lindon, at times, on the verge of bashing in walls from frustration, while also showing a surprising amount of restraint, especially how he interacts with his biracial son Marcus, Issa Perica from Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables (2019), who is being raised by Jean’s very sweet elderly mother (Bulle Ogier), given custody after his ex-wife took off when he went to jail, both having difficulties with him, as he’s restless and wanders the streets, yet also on the verge of being expelled from school, another example of how the past comes back to haunt the present.  Yet it’s revealing how he tries to take control over the poor decisions Marcus is making, hoping he’ll realize the error of his ways, though hardly setting a good example himself, framing his arguments by suggesting his son has to make his own decisions, an apparent contradiction when he’s attempting to make the best decisions for him, with Jean distanced and estranged from the racial circumstances Marcus is facing, blinded by his own white perspective, feeling more like a helpless outsider watching his son’s life fall apart, the same role he unfortunately takes with Sara, becoming something of a jealous spectator.  This family visit, however, offers insight into his own tenuous relationship with Sara, where he also tries to control the narrative through his passive/aggressive tendencies, always suspecting she’s cheating on him, but she’s quick to deny his accusations through her own sense of moral outrage, indignant at his insinuations, leading to a kind of charade of changing emotions, as she always reassures him of her love even as she’s cheating behind his back.  What really stands out is the grown-up feel to this film, sparing nothing, exposing the vulnerabilities of each character, though much of it is told from a female perspective, with the initial pangs of desire felt so intensely by Sara, yet anxiety develops about decisions made in the past that now lead to recklessly impulsive acts, featuring interior passages from Binoche that no other director would have included, like continually murmuring his name in an elevator, or finding herself in the bathroom at night with rhapsodic soliloquies of sexual infatuation, suggesting “old loves never really die,” fearlessly surrendering to a resurgence of former passions, like blood rushing to her head, while at the same time betraying her partner, yet she’s one of the few major female stars who would allow their reputations to be stained by a duplicitous character like this.  It seems a bit like a newly revised version of VENDREDI SOIR, which also featured Vincent Lindon in a spontaneous one night stand, appearing here 20 years later in a more mature context, infused with adult responsibilities, yet he’s embroiled in another morality tale, but instead of falling for someone new, this film explores the eruptive force of an old flame.  Both rely upon a poetic female perspective, visually impressive, psychologically astute observations, featuring strong naturalistic performances, with a vibrant soundtrack by Stuart Staples from Tindersticks, a British alt-rock band that has composed every one of the director’s film scores except one (Beau Travail in 1999) since Nenette and Boni (Nénette et Boni) (1996), yet Denis always finds a unique angle to subvert familiar stories, going off the rails with blistering back and forth arguments at the heart of the drama that become a scream fest of unleashed fears, all initiated by a betrayal that was covered up in a wealth of lies.  Her own confusion feels outrageously melodramatic, yet that’s the novelty of the film, so over-exposed, so vulnerable, with so much to lose, yet she can’t help herself, lying every step of the way, creating a corrosive fissure in their built-up trust, blowing it wide open, where the more she’s caught, the more she covers up, ultimately ensnared by her own deceit.  While the brutality from the verbal fireworks can feel exhaustive, recalling the cruel explosions in Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973), there’s also an element of humor, as her phone, the instrument of her betrayal, making appointments and leaving text messages, has all the contents erased after she accidentally on purpose drops it in the bathwater while attempting to conceal the evidence.  It’s only fitting, perhaps, that her darkly acerbic day of reckoning quite literally disconnects her from her past, with the picture continuing to play out as the closing credits roll, adding another interesting development, a clever device rarely utilized in cinema.    

Claire Denis and Jim Jarmusch In Conversation - YouTube  Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Film at Lincoln Center, March 2022 (1:07:03)

The Intruder (L’intrus)

THE INTRUDER (L’intrus)      A                    

France  (130 mi)  2004  ‘Scope  d:  Claire Denis

Your worst enemies are hiding inside, in the shadows, in your heart.

—The young Russian girl (Katia Golubeva)

Receiving the stranger must then also necessarily entail experiencing his intrusion.           

—Jean-Luc Nancy, L’intrus

An example of utterly fearless filmmaking, Claire Denis has crafted a masterwork that is unlike any other, perhaps recalling the probing, atmospheric density of Wim Wenders Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt) (1991), an ultimate road movie that was filmed in 15 cities in seven countries across four continents, while here a similar epic reach may all be taking place inside someone’s head, yet is expressed through external visualization that couldn’t be more ravishingly beautiful, shot by Agnès Godard at her masterful best, where no single shot approaches visual cliché, just as no single edit fails to surprise, where this film rivals and may even top Beau Travail (1999) for sheer originality.  What everyone can agree upon afterwards is that this is a headscratcher, as few can follow a near incoherent storyline, yet that is the mastery of the film, leaving out gaping holes in the storyline, where the filmmaker provocatively challenges the viewer to connect the dots on their own.  What little we do know is established at the outset, taking place in the deep woods of the Jura mountains along the French-Swiss border, where Louis Trebor (Michel Subor in perhaps his greatest role) lives with his dogs, who offer an enthralling presence in the film, often seen in a heightened state of alert where they live in harmony with the natural world.  Louis loves his dogs more than his own estranged family, never seeing his own grown son Sidney (Grégoire Colin) who lives nearby, and is himself a proud new father.  According to Denis in an interview with Gavin Smith, Claire Denis interview | Film Comment, she initially intended to open the film with the son’s monologue offering a critique about his absent father, where the focus would quickly shift to being about the father, ending the film in an empty forest, with no people and no snow, with a resumption of the monologue, so the entire film was contained in that monologue.  But the actor Grégoire Colin had to leave to work on another film, so they were never able to make that happen.  Instead the film opens on Sidney’s wife Antoinette (Florence Loiret-Caille), who works as a border guard, where her drug sniffing dogs successfully find some smuggled contraband, returning home to a husband who has spent the day with two infants, happy to see his wife, becoming sexually aroused by her presence.  The film then quickly shifts to the older father living like a recluse in the woods.                       

The border region is seen as an open frontier where intruders continually attempt to sneak across under cover of the forest, where occasionally we’ll hear shots fired, but the storyline quickly cuts ahead without revealing any outcome, where Denis paints a picture of Louis as a vigorously healthy man in his seventies, seen swimming naked in the lake, biking the mountain roadways, or making love to a much younger woman in town, yet the discovery that he has a diseased heart radically alters his future, changing the entire dynamic of the film.  Initially envisioned as a three-part structure, the northern hemisphere, limbo, and the southern hemisphere, with each hemisphere a mirror image of the other, but Denis changed her mind when she realized Jean-Luc Godard’s latest effort NOTRE MUSIQUE (2004) used a similar format, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.  As a result, Denis collapsed her three-part structure into one extended dream sequence, where only the existing family seen in the opening, Louis and his son’s family, are real, while all others are a manifestation of his imagination, where people he had previously known in his life reoccur in his thoughts.  The idea behind the film is Jean-Luc Nancy's novel L'Intrus (2000), which was inspired by the author’s own experience recovering from a heart transplant operation.  Denis became fascinated by the idea of introducing a foreign “intrusion” into the body forced to fend for its own survival, oftentimes rejected by the host, even though the body needs it for its own survival, finding parallels with illegal immigrants crossing the border, as well as the mistreatment of foreigners, migrant workers, racial minorities, and those leading marginalized lives on the edge of society.  In Denis’s assured hands, this becomes a life and death issue, where survival depends upon a variety of complex conditions, creating the internalized conditions of reflecting back upon one’s life, even as one hopes to move forward.  Recollections are not necessarily in any order, as thoughts and time periods overlap, where one’s hopes and dreams often replace reality. 

While this is easily Denis’s most extended vision, the only film to go past the two-hour mark, the path she takes is simply remarkable.  And while many will be confused by a lack of coherent narrative, many artists have used this exact same device, including Edward Yang in The Terrorizers (Kong bu fen zi) (1986), the third part of his urban trilogy, each one more increasingly experimental in form, reducing the narrative as much as possible, or Tarkovsky’s THE MIRROR (1975), which is autobiographical, told as an abstract, impressionistic memory piece, ultimately becoming a defiantly personal film.  Artists invent new forms of expression which are meant to challenge existing conventions, like Stravinsky, or Picasso, or atonalism, where Denis takes a Proustian plunge, utilizing a literary stream-of-conscious device to explore memory and consciousness, reflecting upon themes of guilt and moral transgressions, but also personal reconciliation and redemption, where one can be both haunted and inspired by dwelling on the past, creating a hauntingly beautiful dreamscape that plays out like an epic Icelandic saga, told as an extended series of elongated poems that in this director’s hands retain elements of extreme realism, though lushly visualized as an abstract, near wordless tone poem.  The film is largely an articulation of man’s alienated existence as viewed through a deeply tormented subconscious.  Unable to reconcile the inescapable mistakes of the past, Louis remains deeply haunted by them, revisiting the places of his life, hoping for a different outcome, but plagued by the inevitable results.  Since Michel Subor’s original involvement with Godard’s essay on the Algerian War in LE PETIT SOLDAT (1963), he has been portraying the sort of intellectual and moral confusion that individuals have when confronting anguishing events in their lives, where the grizzled expression on his face couldn’t be more eloquently poignant.  The film also curiously stars nearby neighbor Béatrice Dalle as the Queen of the North Hemisphere,

Given an epic structure like Homer’s Odyssey, Louis begins his otherworldly journey by attacking an intruder trying to break into his cabin in the middle of the night, a metaphor for the metaphysical adventure he is about to embark upon, starting with a large payment for a black market donor heart to a young Russian girl (Katia Golubeva), who actually provides the opening narration, and with connections, one assumes, to the Russian mafia, asking for a “young man’s heart,” no questions asked, where some have called her “The Angel of Death,” as she actually shadows his movements for the rest of the film, and even comments upon his progress.  Perhaps the most startling transitions are scenes in the snow, much of which have a mythological resemblance to an illusory world.  A film defined by visual textures, Denis has called it “my vision of a dead man,” where during the shoot she asked Michel Subor to listen to the final recordings of Johnny Cash, which themselves resemble a harrowing near death experience.  When Denis wrote the script, she called him A Man With No Heart, a heartless man, stashing his fortune in secret Swiss bank accounts covering up his shady past, disassociating himself from his family, and becoming something of an eccentric Howard Hughes recluse.  The unseen operation moves the film to the Southern Hemisphere, drawing inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson and Paul Gauguin’s trip to the South Seas, presented as an idyllic landscape in the Polynesian island of Tahiti in search for a new life where he might recover from his operation, yet his condition takes a turn for the worse and he’s forced to return to the hospital.  Complaining of his sick heart, it is the Russian girl who reminds him there’s nothing wrong with his heart except that it’s empty.  Including clips of Tahiti from Paul Gégauff’s unfinished film LE REFLUX (1965), starring Michel Subor four decades ago, the film is seen as an endless voyage of a man slowly dying, much like Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), where one of the more memorable shots is an Antonioni Zabriskie Point (1970) style explosion of colorful streamers jettisoned off the bow of a newly christened ship in South Korea, which he buys for his voyage to Tahiti.  The endless sea odyssey provides an ocean vista featuring a horizon without borders, a pathway venturing into a world of multiple possibilities, yet eventually it’s accompanied by the apocalyptic music of Tendersticks that jars our senses awake with a hypnotic guitar loop as the camera simply drifts endlessly at sea.  Boldly mystifying and brilliant throughout, this is arguably the most lyrically sensuous film Denis has ever made, a film that traffics in the subconscious, taking us on an ominous journey exploring the mysteries in the heart of the unknown.  

BFI | Sight & Sound | Yekaterina Golubeva obituary  David Thompson obituary from BFI Sight & Sound, August 14, 2011, a horrific tagline to the story, as Golubeva provided a lyrical and almost angelic “presence” to Denis films.