THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED
(De battre mon coeur s'est
arête) B+
France (108 mi) 2005 d: Jacques
Audiard
There’s a monkey on my
back
A French update on James Toback’s 1978 debut film FINGERS, a
film considered by Jonathan Rosenbaum as little more than “macho braggadocio,”
however, the hyper-kinetic style alone in this updated version rocks, mixing
the in-your-face, cinéma vérité, hand-held camera work of Stéphane Fontaine
with the immediacy of French New Wave quick cut editing, where the attention
span is a mere few seconds, creating a nervous tension in the way the film is
presented that matches the mood of the lead character, Romain Duris, who could
be the poster child for the word angst, a sensitive thug who plays techno-rock
on his headset, thumping away with his fingers to the beat, including the
wrenching sounds of The Kills “Monkey 23” The
Kills - Monkey 23 - YouTube (3:02). He’s the son of a deceased
classical pianist and an overweight, over-indulgent slumlord father, Niels
Arestup, who could be a stand-in for Toback, whose mannerisms resemble late
Brando. He takes care of the dirty family business for Dad, retrieving,
by any means necessary, the hard to collect overdue rent, usually through an improvisational
violent assault that includes a near death experience. He collaborates with a
couple other dirtbags-in-suits who specialize in get rich quick real estate
schemes, also including a mix of Mafioso-style legalese and plenty of muscle,
stopping to have an affair with the alluring wife (Aure Atika) of one of his
best friends, who he usually sees when he brings his friend home drunk, making
sure the Toback influenced sex and violence explode off the screen.
Duris, however, has another interest on the side—his
continued interest in being a classical pianist, which leads him to an audition
later in the month, which requires intensive training. He hires a recent
émigré from China (Linh Dan Pham) who speaks Chinese, Vietnamese, and a little
English, but no French. Perfect. Their scenes together are among
the best in the entire film, as he has an explosive temper that he has to keep
under wraps, and achieving an emotionally controlled pianistic perfection is no
easy feat. Their communication together, each speaking their own language
or watching their body language or hearing their quiet silences, is a
revelation in this film that features the recurring universe and behavior of
thugs. The contradiction here is too apparent, as he uses his hands to
bash people’s skulls in, yet they’re also required to obtain a musical state of
grace. It was impossible not to think of what happened to Fast Eddie
Felson in THE HUSTLER (1961). Duris, however, pulls this off, seemingly a
bit of a psychotic, nearly always with a slight grin on his face, who shows us
on more than one occasion how quickly he can think on his feet, so the internal
wheels are always churning, but he also quietly and respectfully has a cup of
tea with his piano teacher, revealing a calmness after the storm. The
story is always a bit implausible, but the realization of a man torn between
two distinctly polar opposite worlds is both internally and externally raw,
edgy and well-conceived.
