Anaïs in Love (Les amours d'Anaïs)

 

Writer/director Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

The director with Anaïs Demoustier

Anaïs Demoustier on the set

ANAÏS IN LOVE (Les amours d'Anaïs)       B-                                                                           France  (98 mi)  2021  d: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

Love is in the air and spring flowers are in bloom, where this whirlwind drama is about a rush of excitement, where every last breath is a cause célèbre, rushing about with no rhyme or reason, but rushing anyway, because it’s all about the restlessness of youth, racing headfirst into the future, where everything that’s come before is doubted and questioned in this manic search for finding something new.  A frenetic, adrenaline-based comic drama that thrives on a kind of 30’s screwball comedy style, heavily infused with romanticism, leading to a lesbian love affair where everything else is set to the side, as living in that moment, living life to the fullest, is all that matters.  Centered around one central character, Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet has written her first feature as a kind of formulaic love-on-the-run reverie, almost a parody of French films, somewhat inspired by rewatching Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses (Baisers volés) (1968), specifically the awkwardness of Jean-Pierre Léaud’s youthful transgressions, and Claude Sautet’s romantic ménage-à-trois in César and Rosalie (César et Rosalie) (1972), becoming a tribute to Anaïs, played by Anaïs Demoustier, who also starred in her short film PAULINE ASSERVIE (2018), which serves as the genesis of her role as a young idealistic student in pursuit of something she has yet to define.  Nonetheless she’s running furiously towards an unknown future that awaits only her, as no one else matters, hurtling through lovers with a reckless abandon, leaving them breathlessly wondering what just happened, becoming a life filled with romantic expectations that are never met, never stopping to comprehend, as only the next moment can possibly bring her the happiness she so desperately seeks.  Reason be damned, as nothing in this has to make sense, as there are no consequences for her erratic decisions, instead it’s all about the swirl of possibilities, where being young, free-spirited, and impulsive is like a titillating tease, where exploring every awaiting moment with that mad rush of anticipation becomes the be-all and end-all for this film, bearing some resemblance to the anxiously neurotic, compulsively indecisive Greta Gerwig character in Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha (2012), or the rhythmical whimsy of the adorably likeable Audrey Tatou in AMÉLIE (2001), while Sally Hawkins also comes to mind in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky (2008).  What these films share is not just a female protagonist, but the curiosity their characters express, where it’s a significant shift in focus to see women exploring their own desires rather than be the object of male desire.  Obviously not for everyone, as some will be completely disgusted by the utterly selfish, self-obsessed, and manipulative behavior on display, resembling the same infantile antics of the heavily praised Jean-Pierre Léaud, yet illustrative of the narcissism of today’s privileged white elite, but there’s no moralizing in this film, as Anaïs casually disregards everyone with equal disdain, thinking only of herself at all times, lost in a self-induced cloud of confusion that’s really just a smokescreen for avoiding the banality of existence, where at the core of this comedy is an existential farce about life’s possibilities.  After all, what are Vladimir and Estragon waiting for in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot?  And does it really matter, as the space they fill becomes a dramatically compelling theater-of-the-absurd that lends itself to a philosophical dawning of a new age, as something is always waiting around the next corner.     

Featuring faces we have seen before, Anaïs Demoustier from François Ozon’s The New Girlfriend (Une nouvelle amie) (2014), initially discovered by Michael Haneke in Time of the Wolf (Le Temps du Loup) (2003), Denis Podalydès from Christophe Honoré’s Sorry Angel (Plaire, aimer et courir vite) (2018), though he’s part of the explosive fireworks in Arnaud Desplechin’s dialogue-driven MY SEX LIFE…OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT (1996), and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi from Bruno Dumont’s Slack Bay (Ma Loute) (2016) and François Ozon’s Summer of '85 (Été 85) (2020), though she was a powerhouse in Noémie Lvovsky’s stormy relationship drama, FORGET ME (Oublie-moi) (1994), each one filling the screen with a kind of fairy tale story that explores what love can make some people do.  Premiering at Critics’ Week at Cannes in 2021, the American release came a year later without much fanfare, viewed as that typically French bourgeois drama that fits every cliché, but has a way of effortlessly displaying that effusive French charm, turning into a breezy comedy that subverts mainstream expectations by veering into lesbian exotica.  Opening with a breathless blur set to the racing piano of Nicola Piovani’s score, Bourgeois-Tacquet sets the tone with a feverish set-up that continually races against time, resembling the frenzied energy of Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (Lolo Rennt) (1998), as Anaïs is a woman in a hurry, running everywhere, is habitually late, and offers excuses in exasperatingly sped-up, mile-a-minute outbursts,  ANAÏS IN LOVE - "Being in a couple is too hard" YouTube (2:47), echoing the White Rabbit’s frantic utterance from Disney’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951), Alice in Wonderland - I'm late - YouTube (42 seconds), where viewers have to recalibrate their conventional sensibilities for the absurdist world that awaits them.  Already in her 30’s, instead of figuring things out by now, her life makes even less sense, caught between having to deal with responsibilities, condescending men, and thankless jobs, so instead celebrates the constant chaos around her with teenage-like carelessness.  She’s a literature student who is never seen studying, blithely avoiding due dates by perpetually putting off her doctoral dissertation, is months behind on her rent, but blames it on a failed relationship where she became bored and kicked out a boyfriend that she was relying upon to pay his share of the rent, now left in limbo suggesting there’s no possible way she can pay it now, where we continually see her avoid adversities before running off to her next adventure, hardly attributes for sustaining any longterm relationship.  Relying upon her youthful charm and beauty while following her impetuous desires is reminiscent of those endearing Éric Rohmer comedies of the 80’s and 90’s, especially the literary references and the sophisticated yet scatterbrained dialogue spoken at breakneck speed.  When her mother (Anne Canovas) encourages her to take a job at a publishing company to meet interesting people, Anaïs brazenly responds, “I don’t want to meet interesting people.  I want to be interesting.”  Whether or not you think she succeeds may depend upon your tolerance for this kind of excessive display of self-absorbed narcissism, where it’s kind of like watching a kid in a candy store bouncing off the walls in a sugar rush.

There is a surprising change of tone when her mother, who she adores, announces her cancer that had been in remission for years has returned with ominous implications, sending Anaïs into a dizzying headspin, this time running to the nearest beach for a swim (we should all be so lucky), yet the choice of accompanying music is such an overly dramatic turn, perhaps the most operatic song associated with death, that it feels comical in its brazenly melodramatic overreach, Anaïs in Love (2021) - the scene with Purcell's Dido's Lament YouTube (2:10).  The choice of locations in this film is stunning, however, mixing the sun and the sea alongside the Côtes-d’Armor and Pays de la Loire coastlines, literally exuding in radiant summer color, immaculately shot by Noé Bach, accentuating the luminosity of the naturalistic settings, not so much the darkened interiors that feel more cramped and claustrophobic, with suggestions of a darker turn of fate that never really happens.  After breezily dumping her boyfriend Raoul (Christophe Montenez) on the street, who describes her as a social bulldozer, exhibiting no tact whatsoever, literally plowing over people, she moves on to Daniel (Denis Podalydès) an older, middle-aged book publisher that she meets at a party, having a brief fling, but she’s struck by a picture of his wife Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), seen only from behind, exactly like Céline Sciamma’s erotic lesbian drama, 2019 Top Ten List #2 Portrait of a Lady On Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu), yet also Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), or Preminger’s Laura (1944).  The more she hears the more she likes, as time suddenly slows down, enamored by the lipstick and perfume she finds placed around the bathroom sink, discovering she’s a novelist, mirroring her own interests, dropping Daniel in a heartbeat and making a beeline to a literary symposium at the prestigious Château de Kerduel, a picturesque Brittany setting on a lake surrounded by a forest, where she finds some excuse to meet her, ANAÏS IN LOVE - "You're very beautiful" YouTube (1:49) before joining her later in an erotic dance, Gli amori di Anaïs - Clip "Gli occhi di Bette Davis" - YouTube (1:37).  Making it a habit to run into her, at the expense of her own studies, her mother’s illness, or paying the rent, accidentally on purpose sitting next to her in a movie screening, where there’s a delightful movie-within-a-movie moment seeing the wondrous Gena Rowlands onscreen in Cassavetes’ Opening Night (1977), lost in her own zany quest for self-discovery, before inviting her the next day for a swim on the beach.  Wandering through a stunningly gorgeous coastline to get there, ANAIS IN LOVE - Closer by the Coast YouTube (2:16), breasts are exposed and kisses lead to inflamed passions on the beach, ANAIS IN LOVE - "I Want to Kiss You" YouTube (1:53), a significantly different female stylization than Kechiche’s male-driven Blue Is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2) (2013), resembling some wildly erotic romance novel (lewd drawings are discovered in a hidden closet) where an older and younger woman awaken long-repressed desires, a supposed pathway to a personal road to freedom and discovery.  In this breezy and lighthearted mix of the male and female gaze, sex is only for the beautiful, as Anaïs gleefully follows her instincts and steamrolls her way into the future.

La Belle Personne (The Beautiful Person)

 

 

Director Christophe Honoré

Léa Seydoux at Venice festival, 2009

Seydoux and Louis Garrel at San Sebastian, 2009

Seydoux and Garrel with their director at San Sebastian, 2009

LA BELLE PERSONNE (The Beautiful Person) – made for TV           A-                                  France  (93 mi)  2008  d: Christophe Honoré

I love you too much to let you think I can live without you.  I don’t care if you cheat on me as long as you are honest and tell me.  I don’t care if you hide me away as long as you come to find me again.  I am patient.  And while I await you I will recall your whole body.  I’m even in love with your knees.   —Martin’s secret letter to Mathias

Honoré returns us to a high school setting that couldn’t be more radically different from Laurent Cantet’s Palme D’Or winning The Class (Entre Les Murs) (2008), loosely adapting Madame de La Fayette’s 1678 novel of forbidden passions, La Princesse de Clèves, one of the first modern French novels set hundreds of years ago while offering commentary on current sexual practices and modern era standards of morality.  Honoré, author of a dozen novels, decided to adapt La Princesse de Clèves after French president Nicholas Sarkozy criticized the novel, which is required reading in French schools, declaring in a public meeting in Lyon in 2006 that there was nothing today’s generation could learn from a dusty old novel like this one, having no relevance for desk clerks, claiming he “suffered” through his youth by being forced to read it, suggesting whoever made it obligatory was “either a sadist or an idiot.”  Of course, sales of the book doubled within a year, while also generating student protests, occupying faculty buildings while reading the novel in its entirety on loudspeakers outside hundreds of government facilities across the country, even as far away as the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, as the French magazine Télérama asked a hundred writers to name their favorite books, coming in third behind Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and James Joyce’s Ulysses.  Reflecting on a literary passage, “Never had a court had so many beautiful people,” this triggers a move from the 17th century French court of King Henri II into a contemporary Parisian high school setting, shot on location at Lycée Molière (Paris), where two enormous 19th century wooden doors are pulled open to reveal the entryway, with balconies overlooking an open courtyard, where a new student arrives, setting off a ballet of combative flirtation, as they fight and desire one another, spreading rumors, speaking behind each other’s backs, resulting in dramatic twists of fate, with teachers and students openly spying on one another, ultimately reviving a historical tale of love, courtly intrigue, infidelity, and death.  With music punctuating the performances, it becomes an elegiac teenage rapture of a dreamy yet doomed youth, expressed with an airy romanticism.  From the outset, we are immersed in the hectic energy of hallways and classrooms, where modern day kids hover around one another with good-natured ribbing and catch up on the latest gossip.  The subjects may be mathematics, Italian, or even Russian, where some students stand out with their intelligence and brash challenges to the teacher’s authority, yet over time we become more familiar with various students and teachers.  What’s apparent here is Honoré’s framing of faces in close-up, creating a stream-of-conscious montage of student’s faces, all in the same room, but each absorbed in something uniquely different from the other, creating a PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) silent era resemblance.  This actually focuses the audience’s attention on reading the faces of characters, as most are invariably hiding something from one another.  We are soon introduced to an Italian teacher, Louis Garrel as Nemours, now in his 4th film with this director, synonymous with the face of French cinema, son of director Philippe Garrel and an heir to the French New Wave’s Jean-Pierre Léaud, in particular Léaud’s character Alexandre in Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), who film critic Roger Ebert describes as follows:  “Alexandre is smart enough, but not a great intellect.  His favorite area of study is himself, but there he hasn't made much headway.  He chatters about the cinema and about life, sometimes confusing them… He spends his days in cafés, holding (but not reading) Proust… women can let a man talk endlessly about himself while they regard him like a specimen of aberrant behavior.  Women keep a man like Alexandre around, I suspect, out of curiosity about what new idiocy he will next exhibit,” The Mother And The Whore movie review (1999).  This is the character Louis Garrel has inhabited, the guy who talks feverishly to one woman while keeping his eye on another, dropping women whenever it suits him, never giving them a second thought as he’s on to his next conquest.  In the book his character is known as the dashing Duke of Nemours.

The focus of Nemours attention turns to a student in his class, Junie played by Léa Seydoux, where the specter of Anna Karina haunts her performance, a strikingly pretty girl with dark hair who appears moody and keeps largely to herself, a new girl living with her cousin who has joined mid-term following the death of her mother and is subject to mood swings, but also exhibits a liberating sense of honesty, as she doesn’t believe in keeping secrets.  This is in striking contrast to Catherine in an early screen appearance from Anaïs Demoustier, playing something of a bad ass by threatening anyone exposing her secrets, as she hides the fact that she’s cheating on her boyfriend.  Junie allows Otto, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, so good in LOVE SONGS (Les Chansons D’Amour) (2007), to sweet talk and kiss her, a quiet, sensitive guy who adores her on first sight, as does most every other guy, but Otto is so innocently pure that he’s described by another student as “a saint.”  She treats him more like a friend than a lover, as he so willingly provides whatever suits her purpose.  What we witness are plenty of pairings, where the object of one’s love is often in love with someone else, as love is often hidden or can only be expressed in secret.  In class, Nemours plays a recording of Maria Callas singing Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor, setting into play a choreography of tragic emotions which has a profound effect on Junie, suddenly aware that she’s the center of attention and the object of everyone’s desire, Léa Seydoux - La Belle Personne 2 YouTube (1:16).  This environment of love in the air resembles musical chairs, as Nemours, obsessed by her allure, instantly dumps his two girlfriends, one with a teacher colleague (Florence Perin) and the other with Catherine, wiping the slate clean, while confiding his swelling feelings of love for Junie to a fellow teacher, La Belle Personne 2008 Segment 0 x264 YouTube (2:27). But Junie is no naïve girl, like the character in the book, who despite her royal marriage suddenly swoons and falls passionately in love with the Duke of her dreams.  Instead she remains heavily guarded, despite being handed a love letter and told it was written by Nemours, thinking it was referring to her, supposedly seen falling out of his pocket, but it actually originated as an exchange between her cousin Mathias (Esteban Carnival Alegria) and his secret gay admirer Martin (Martin Siméon), an affair they kept secret which is now suddenly out in the open, causing a scandal when another student Henri (Simon Truxillo), Martin’s former lover, vindictively gets his revenge.  This is a brilliantly inventive handling of the original source material, retaining the purloined letters and eavesdropping on private conversations, while also cleverly integrating a brief appearance by actress Chiara Mastroianni, who had a starring role in Manoel de Oliveira’s LA LETTRE (1999), an adaptation of the same novel, while Jean Delannoy, aided by an adaptation written by poet Jean Cocteau, also filmed his own French-Italian version of LA PRINCESS DE CLÈVES (1961).  Discredited by American audiences as a French recreation of a Gossip Girl episode, unable to see the tight-knit complexity of Honoré’s work as a gay auteur, or the darker underlying implications of unexpected violence, yet there is an exquisitely directed display of tenderness and lyricism, where Seydoux, wonderfully expressive with very little dialogue, embodies a sense of emotional restraint in a series of events that are continually swirling out of control, like a form of combustible energy, as for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, where everyone soon finds out what’s going on behind closed doors.  Junie is ensnared in this same web of intrigue, as she’s got a safe guy who loves her, but her thoughts lie elsewhere, so she confides in Otto, who soon discovers the real object of her desire, where a fatal misunderstanding sends him into a jealous tailspin.  In an astounding scene, Otto begins singing to himself as he walks through crowded space, a device used in DANS PARIS (2006), while everyone around him is oblivious to his character or his thoughts, as if he’s invisible, until he throws himself off a balcony, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet - Comme la Pluie YouTube (3:20), dying in despair, convinced his lover has betrayed him, ending in a striking image that resembles Manet’s The Dead Toreador, The Dead Man (Manet).    

What’s remarkable in Honoré films is the consistent tone of emotional authenticity, even when using an artificial Sirkian melodramatic means to express it, such as the assaultive metal music taking the place of unspoken grief in Seventeen Times Cécile Cassard (Dix-sept fois Cécile Cassard) (2002), the hedonistic and incessant use of Oedipal sex while spewing philosophically transcendent dialogue in MA MÈRE (2004), framing characters speaking directly to the camera before veering into a reverential tribute to both Godard and Jacques Demy in the energetic French New Wave style in DANS PARIS (2006), or the clever use of original songs in a naturalistic musical that soar into the stratosphere of poetic expression in LOVE SONGS (2007).  In this film, much like the last, it’s the exquisite use of pop song culture that expresses the emotional sincerity of the teenage students, all of whom are more mature than their teacher Nemours, even in their mixed up confusion over being rejected or fooled in love, viewing love as an adventure, never knowing whether it will work out or not, where first loves are the most beautiful, while also the most painful, as nearly all the characters are tormented by their first encounter with love, with the director accentuating the restlessness brewing beneath the surface.  Their anxious emotions are real, even if covering up the catastrophe that is teenage life, literally drowning in existential angst, with everyone displaying a surprising nonchalance about student-teacher affairs, except Junie and Otto who are both devastated by its moral implications.  Honoré is deft in using music as a psychological thread throughout this film, first as background music or later as a read-aloud poem in Italian by Junie in class that turns out to be a pop song that is first read in Italian before being re-read again as it is translated back to French, Léa Seydoux - La Belle Personne 1 - YouTube (1:37), but he also uses the playing of a jukebox song or the recording of the opera, all creating a romanticized operatic atmosphere drenched in the spirit of love, exploring its essence inside and out without ever resorting to explicit sexuality.  There’s a wonderful line by aging bar owner Nicole (Chantal Neuwirth), who matter of factly confesses “I haven’t been French-kissed for 23 years,” later playing an old standard on the jukebox expressly for Junie that perfectly encapsulates what is going on, with the camera lingering on her passive expression, “She was so pretty that I didn’t dare love her,” Alain Barrière "Elle était si jolie" | Archive INA - YouTube (3:03).  There’s an interesting side story about a widowed librarian (Clotilde Hesme), who everyone assumed was quietly living alone with her grief for years on end, only to discover she had a secret lover all along, suggesting appearances are not the reality.  When Nemours obsessively turns into a stalker in pursuit of Junie, who is obviously avoiding him, unsure of herself, she agrees to talk with him, where he rushes her into a hotel room only to become a starkly realistic breakup scene where she describes what a cad he is, how she doesn’t wish to become another number in his forgotten list of lovers, so she’d rather avoid him altogether, deciding to honor Otto’s love even in death rather than disparage it, La Belle Personne YouTube (2:55).  What makes Honoré’s nuanced film memorable is the unique difficulty in adapting Madame de La Fayette’s novel, as it focuses on the inner workings of the heroine’s mind, making it difficult to exteriorize, yet Seydoux’s measured and remarkably understated tone mirrors the restraint that characterizes Lafayette’s 17th century representation of the royal court.  From an era of forced or arranged marriages to a day when women are free to speak their minds and reject interested suitors, it remains resolutely clear that despite any sexual or women’s liberation that has taken place, love still hurts in every way imaginable.  Nothing has changed that inherent fact of life.  Indescribably, this film was made for television, though there are no noticeable compromises in style or substance, with excellent camerawork from Laurent Brunet, brilliant editing from Chantal Hymans, terrific ensemble work all around, and an intriguing use of music from Alex Beaupain with songs by Nick Drake that enter the film like an unseen character.     

La Belle Personne - ENGLISH subs. - YouTube  Entire film with English subtitles (1:33:35)