Suspended Time (Hors du Temps)

 

Director Olivier Assayas

Assayas on the set with Nine D'Urso

actress Nine D'Urso

Assayas with cast on the red carpet in Berlin

SUSPENDED TIME (Hors du Temps)                      C+                                                       France  (105 mi)  2024  d: Olivier Assayas

I wanted to bring a cinema crew within this very intimate space, which is something that movies hardly do.  I thought it was a way of exposing myself.                                                     —Olivier Assayas

For whatever reason, Assayas takes us back to the early stages of the Covid pandemic in 2020, a period of lockdown when stores and restaurants shuttered, leaving people spending the majority of their time indoors, with the director choosing his own childhood home out in the country, a pastoral retreat in the village of Montabé, a small town nestled in the Chevreuse Valley about an hour’s drive from Paris.  It’s an upscale estate surrounded by verdant gardens and woods, filled with empty spaces to hike and explore, where no one is crowding into their space, recalling the summer idyll movies of Éric Rohmer, who had a profound influence on Assayas, both as a Cahiers du Cinéma writer and filmmaker, acknowledging that “Here, time stands still.”  An introductory narrative monologue is spoken by Assayas himself, adding a literary and novelistic flavor, introducing not only the house and the mostly unseen neighborhood homes who own even larger patches of land, but also two couples who are living together in isolation during lockdown, two brothers Paul, Vincent Macaigne, from Assayas’ Non-Fiction (Doubles Vies) (2018) and the recent made-for-TV IRMA VEPP (2022) adaptation of his earlier film Irma Vep (1996), and younger brother Etienne (Micha Lescot), along with their girlfriends Morgane (Nine d’Urso), a documentary filmmaker and Carole (Nora Hamzawi, also in the made-for-TV IRMA VEPP).  Etienne is a music journalist, radio host, and free-spirited rocker with silver hair and tinted dark glasses that are always worn, while Paul is a cinema journalist and filmmaker, perfectly at home with the stacks of old books on his father’s color-coded bookshelves, conjuring up old memories and ghosts of the past.  The two brothers couldn’t be more different, each having their own distinct personality, as Paul is nervous and uptight about just about everything, believing there are exact cautionary procedures to follow to prevent the spread of Covid into their home, like leaving any arriving packages or groceries outside for at least four hours, scrubbing hands afterwards, while rarely venturing into town, but when he does he always wears a mask, and washes his clothes when returning.  Etienne has a more laid back approach, thinking being sensible is the best policy, but that drives his brother nuts, thinking he’s being too blasé about it.  While neither are at high risk for infection, Paul runs around scared all the time, charting infectious rates like an amateur sleuth, worried that they’ll be infected, while Etienne is more worried about the highly restrictive encroachments on his personal freedom.  As there’s constant friction between them, since they haven’t lived with each other since they were children, they each crave their own space, and this gigantic mansion in the woods allows that, where they only come together at meal times, with Etienne spending plenty of time making fun of his brother’s quirky obsessions, while also pursuing his latest habit of making crêpes all the time.  All happening before a vaccine became available, most of us were more severely traumatized during Covid, especially by the spiraling number of deaths that reached into the millions, than anyone seen here, where the life of entitled privilege insulates them from the more unpleasant realities the rest of us faced on a daily basis, like losing our jobs from so many business closures, or close friends and family members to this protracted outbreak, wiping out entire wings of grandparents in nursing homes, while some also lost their homes.   

More than anything, this is a dialogue-heavy film, to the point of making viewers uncomfortable, as they feel little interest in returning to these burdensome times when Covid dominated the landscape, as it was something you couldn’t escape.  Finally free of the complete Covid saturation, Assayas has re-opened the door, like a portal to a lost and forgotten time, and plunged us right into the middle of it again, with the family home providing a legacy to their parents, becoming a ghostly character in itself that haunts everything we see.  Mostly this takes us back to the perfect French countryside of Assayas’ SUMMER HOURS (2008), where languid sunny days were all too common, as the flora of the area is presented in great detail, a world much better represented by the work of painters, questioning whether cinema has lost touch with nature.  But unlike that film, where the characters are well-defined and easily recognizable, played by major stars, these characters are much less interesting, in fact, there’s little interest in them at all, making this something of a slog.  The story revolves around Paul and his ultra-cautious neurotic obsessions about Covid, even watching a YouTube video on how to wash your hands properly as he washes his hands properly, so it gets a little ridiculous, but worst of all are his constant rants about painters, writers, and the world of art, where he endlessly name drops significant cultural figures, discussing the letters of Héloïse and Peter Abelard and the work of British painter and photographer David Hockney, just for starters.  With French art and literary history constantly being referenced, you may need footnotes to follow this movie, as Assayas mines the interiority of the pandemic in uniquely different ways, but fails to make any of this connect, intellectually or emotionally, as they seemingly have meaning to him and him alone, but he never translates that to viewers, who have largely tuned out.  This is significant, as Assayas is something of an art historian, with Paul becoming an alter-ego of the director, but his fascination never becomes ours, as we are continually locked out from what’s seemingly so essential to his life, as it simply never matters, yet he rambles on and on to the point of being unintelligible and pretentious.  His brother Etienne has already tuned out on almost anything and everything he has to say, knowing there’s no connection there, so he doesn’t waste his time, which is a very sensible approach, yet there we are stuck in the middle of a picture that takes us back to a time we’d just as soon forget, with Paul being at the center of it, offering a refresher course on everything we’d rather not remember.  The names of musicians lost to Covid are mentioned, while also mentioning Bob Dylan’s nearly 17-minute song released at the outset of Covid, Bob Dylan - Murder Most Foul (Official Audio) YouTube (16:56), but their music is never heard, which is unfortunate, as that might have expanded Etienne’s role, instead they play the goofball novelty song Snoopy V.S. The Red Baron -- The Royal Guardsman (2:40), also referenced near the end of Quintin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019).  Cinematographer Éric Gautier captures the mostly empty spaces with a natural light, creating a gentle dreamscape that feels quietly autobiographical.  In real life, Assayas has a younger brother Michka who is a successful music journalist, as well as a daughter whose custody he shares with the now-separated mother, Mia Hansen-Løve (played by Maud Wyler), maker of All Is Forgiven (Tout est pardonée) (2007), Goodbye First Love (Un Amour de Jeunesse) (2011), Eden (2014), Things to Come (L'avenir) (2016), Bergman Island (2021), and One Fine Morning (Un Beau Matin) (2022).   

Resembling the bare-bones, small-scale productions made in the early years of Covid, where there are distinct intersections with the director’s own life, yet while there is an attempt to build important autobiographical links, they seem inconsequential, as what instead stands out is the massive scale of the house and surrounding grounds, a picture of luxuriousness, where it’s hard to picture any kind of trauma happening at that locale, as it offers all the privacy in the world.  If you’re going to be stuck in isolation, that’s the place to be, but who among us had that opportunity, as this simply reeks of privilege, yet this mostly seems to be an expression of blasé banality.  Both brothers are recently separated, leaving children behind as part of the collateral damage, speaking to them via Zoom calls, with Paul also conducting video chat sessions with his therapist (Dominique Reymond, the same part she plays in the recent Assayas made-for-TV adaptation of IRMA VEPP, and a regular in earlier Assayas films), rather preposterously taking place in the great outdoors while sitting under a giant tree, comfortably nestled into the natural world.  This is the last place he should feel stressed, and even acknowledges at some point that he actually likes the idea of lockdown, as if he’s on a permanent vacation of reading and relaxation, allowing him to revisit literature he previously had no time for, claiming it feels almost utopian despite happening in the face of millions dying from a social catastrophe, and even throws in a podcast with Jean Renoir talking about his father Pierre-Auguste Renoir.  But rather than expand on that, the film instead follows the constant bickering between the two brothers, squabbling over health protocols, living a hermetic lifestyle that produces an incessant need for online shopping, where the moral justification only places more money into the coffers of billionaires who show a blatant disregard for the company’s appalling working conditions, with Etienne calling Amazon “a war profiteer,” while blindly forgetting the women in their lives, who are present, but rarely make any meaningful decisions, and instead remain almost entirely in the background.  Plainly speaking, this is one of the weaker Assayas efforts, weaving together pieces of a confinement movie, where the repetitive nature accentuates the claustrophobic feel of the world closing in on them in the form of an ever-spreading, highly infectious killer disease, like some schlock B-movie exploitation horror flick from the 50’s, while characters try to make sense of the cramped, routine existence that they inhabit that resembles the imprisoned doom of Sartre’s No Exit.  While hardly on the same level of other Covid-restrictions movies that would have to include the imaginative flair of Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc) (2021), the playfulness of Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro’s The Tsugua Diaries (Diários de Otsoga) (2021), the unraveling relationships of Claire Denis’ Both Sides of the Blade (Avec amour et acharnement) (2022) or the noirish ambiguity of Stars at Noon (2022), and the wild turns in Joachim Trier’s hypnotically beautiful 2021 #3 Film of the Year The Worst Person in the World (Verdens verste menneske), the Covid experience remains deeply imprinted into our minds and imaginations, yet here self-indulgence and monotony seem to go hand in hand, where the circular monologues feel endlessly exhausting, but a final gesture of love in the air in the middle of an overgrown enchanted forest of Paul’s youth seems like an idyllic hope for a brighter future.  

Non-Fiction (Doubles Vies)

Director Olivier Assayas with actress Juliette Binoche

NON-FICTION (Doubles Vies)            C+               

aka:  Double Lives

France  (108 mi)  2018  d:  Olivier Assayas

Arguably the director’s weakest film, a bungling attempt to offer something important to say about the changing digital landscape, yet for all its chattiness and endless conversations about the publishing business, it becomes clumsy and wretchedly monotonous, playing a viciously circular game questioning the future of books, newspapers, and even the existence of libraries themselves, all supposedly replaced by digital content that will render the printed page meaningless.  Disappointed, to say the least, as Assayas is one of the more inventive modern directors, yet this has surprisingly little to say, instead falling into a typical bourgeois world of comfort and complacency.  Despite a first rate cast, Assayas’s written script leaves something to be desired, as it all amounts to pure speculation, though it’s treated like a done deal, filled with facts and figures for arguments in support, including the latest trends, which comes across like something out of a business investment magazine, where it’s preached like the gospel, only to later discover that the rush to judgment was a bit premature, rendering all the previous arguments as utter rubbish, yet that’s what constitutes the core of the movie.  Told in a freewheeling style, like a screwball comedy, the brisk pace of the film is quick and concise, with little room for hesitation, almost exclusively taking place in the tightly compressed spaces of offices, hotel rooms, bars and café’s, and the enclosed intimacy of home.  Exposing what duplicitous lives we lead, having a secret lover on the side while engaged in long-term relationships, where the divide is lack of trust, which mirrors the newspaper or print media, which has never been more guilty at telling targeted audiences exactly what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not, ignoring journalistic integrity and even standards of decency, developing a callous and indifferent attitude about destroying lives in the process by spreading rumors or gossip, especially when based on bad information, but what matters is whether or not they have a readership or viewing audience.  While the prevailing argument is that people read less today, the counter argument is that this is blatantly untrue, only the source is different, as they’re not reading as many novels or newspapers, but they’re reading texts, websites, and blog information instead, picking and choosing their sources.  While this opens up the floodgates on a discussion about the digital world, it barely touches the surface, offering trends and superficial points of view that may or may not have meaning, as it’s still too early to tell, and instead feels like a group of like-minded, white, over-privileged bourgeois individuals tossing their own opinions around, ignoring large segments of the globe who think differently than they do, whose ideas are completely ignored because it doesn’t fit the business model.  So what this really tells us in an interglobal world is that we’re only really interested in ourselves, rarely venturing out of our comfort zones.

Even the English title is misleading, as non-fiction suggests truth, not fiction, yet there’s very little underlying truth about this film, instead it’s swarming with the latest rumors and gossip, filled with self-centered people who couldn’t care less about what’s happening in the world, so long as they can lead comfortable lives.  The French title is more accurate, suggesting truth is ever more elusive, holding double meanings, which means different things to different audiences, which makes it that much harder to reach any common understanding.  At the center of the picture is a bourgeois, middle class couple, like the ones depicted in Haneke’s Caché (Hidden) (2005), where Alain (Guillaume Canet) is an erudite book publisher with a fashionable actress wife Selena (Juliette Binoche), and while they have a young son he barely makes his presence felt, like he’s an afterthought, certainly not the center of their world.  Their lives conveniently revolve around themselves, including a massive home, an upscale Audi car, and all creature comforts, where they’re used to eating in the nicest restaurants.  While Selena makes tons of money playing a cop on TV (for the fourth season), she’s quick to point out she’s not a cop, but a crisis management expert.  In the scenes we see, however, the focus of attention is on guns blasting, going full-on assault mode, where there’s little effort spent managing any crisis, as they are too busy inflicting one instead.  Early on Alain has a business meeting and lunch with one of his longtime authors, Leonard (Vincent Macaigne), but refuses to publish his new work, which feels more like his sleazy sexual exploits surrounded by more autobiographical self-aggrandizement.  Just so you can understand the eloquent and flowery manner of speech Alain uses throughout the conversation, remaining tactful and inoffensive, Leonard never gets the picture his work is being turned down, which comes as quite a surprise at the end, especially after all the so-called complimentary talk.  The two are like polar opposites, with Alain immaculately dressed, his words carefully chosen, his home a picture of tasteful décor, while Leonard stumbles and stammers, never really getting his thoughts out, and dresses shabbily, where his apartment is a mess, as nothing is apparently ever put away.  His live-in girlfriend Valerie (Nora Hamzawi), on the other hand, is more like Alain, concise in her expression, saying exactly what she means, and is the real breadwinner in the family, working as a high profile attorney while supporting a socially conscious Socialist political candidate who is having trouble getting his message across, as it can’t be explained in the television sound bites and twitter universe.  Valerie’s matter-of-fact way of handling things is the complete opposite of Leonard, making it clear she couldn’t care less about his publishing troubles, while Leonard’s prone to think he’s the center of the known universe. 

While these four characters represent the focus of the film, as the film progresses we witness how cavalierly they cheat on one another.  Alain has hired a first rate head of digital operations who seems fresh out of university, always providing definitive answers about the death of the book publishing industry, having been raised in an era that immersed themselves in technology and the Internet, she finds it so much simpler and more advantageous than the “old ways,” and e-books are so much cheaper and can be transported anywhere.  Not only does Alain give her free rein at the company, he’s having an affair with this much younger girl as well, which feels a bit humorous, as she loves the sex but has utter contempt for what he does for a living.  Perhaps more surprising, Selena has been carrying on an affair with Leonard for years, and is his biggest booster, but is highly slighted when he publishes personal elements of their relationship, using it for material in his books, which she instantly recognizes and then has to cover her tracks afterwards, suggesting that’s someone else.  This fictionalized line is expressed to her husband, serving as a misdirection, though it becomes a central piece of her marriage, where preserving secrets and lies is essential.  Valerie has similar problems with her political candidate’s sexual misadventures which must be kept from the press, preserving his image at all costs, where lying is an essential ingredient.  While they all have positive attributes, they spend their lives covering up a darker underside, where they are never quite what they seem, but are instead understood by how they appear to be, where much of what they project is all an act.  Marriages fall apart from bad acting, apparently, as people don’t sell their lies as well.  While they all retreat to friendly groups and are connected to larger social circles that endlessly discuss the topics of the day, where Valerie finds it unnerving that even her closest associates find it difficult to support her candidate, or Selena gets embarrassed at the thought of selling out for commercial gain, finding little or no value in her television series, as it’s not the least bit challenging, but she gets a gargantuan salary that supports her lavish lifestyle.  The way things play out does challenge our growing dependence on technology, confronting radical changes in our changing world, where various points of view are aired, but it’s hard to find anything new or revelatory about this film, just as it’s hard to place meaning or value on the rapidly changing Internet culture, which is always in a state of flux, instead it just rehashes all the various opinions we’ve already heard before, mostly just skimming the surface.  Cinematically this lacks verve and imagination, especially compared to Demonlover (2002), for instance, one of the first films to examine the effects of the digital age.  While we have never heard Assayas flail away and be so repetitious in his films before, endlessly belaboring ideas that amount to little more than cliché’s, with characters that couldn’t be less appealing, so myopic in their own lives, sending signals of utter complacency by the end, hardly a message that needs airing, where of all the Assayas films seen, this one has the least to offer.

Note

The film inaccurately attributes a quote from Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s historic novel The Leopard, published posthumously in 1958, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change,” suggesting it was uttered near the end by Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina, a character who was deeply resistant to change, but in fact it was spoken much earlier by his nephew Tancredi Falconieri, the voice of a new generation, remarking upon the continuance of Sicilian aristocratic life.  One wonders if this was done intentionally, as Assayas is extremely well-read, suggesting that in today’s world, as suggested by Kiarostami’s CERTIFIED COPY (2010), fake truth is just as easily accepted as the actual truth.