ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Isabelle Huppert

False Confessions – A Farce in the Wrong Time

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Farce, to me, occupies a place between the Shakespearean comedies of people falling in love and the modern romcom. False Confessions is a twenty-first century update of an eighteenth century French farce. If it seems stagy it is because of more than just its historical roots. It was partially filmed in a theatre during the day at the same place that the cast was performing the play in the evenings.

Araminte (Isabelle Huppert) is a wealthy widow. She hires Dorante (Louis Garrel), a young man who is smitten with her, as her personal secretary. As her mother makes plans to connect her to a count who needs her money, Dorante and some of Araminte’s servants make plans to facilitate her falling in love with Dorante. At times it seems like a scam might be in the works, but in the end it is all about finding love in unexpected ways.

As in modern romantic comedies, the story revolves around the vagaries of falling in love. The upstairs/downstairs aspect of the story, as well as the inclusion of nobility into the mix reflect a world that doesn’t quite fit with the modern-day setting. The original play comes from a time before democracy and egalitarianism. The class consciousness that the original play exploited is not really evident in this film, which makes it lose it edge.

Photos courtesy of Big World Pictures

Things to Come – Finding a New Path

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“I’m too old for radicality.”

When the foundations of our lives shift, how do we begin to rebuild? In Mia Hansen-Løve’s film Things to Come, a middle aged woman faces sudden changes and must set about finding the course she wants for her life.

Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a philosophy professor who has a fairly happy and comfortable life with her husband Heinz (André Marcon). Her mother can be a bit demanding and Nathalie must include time in her schedule to deal with her mother’s needs, but it is the kind of thing we get used to as we reach that age. Nathalie loves her job and working with her students. She takes pride in those who move on in the field. Then in rapid succession her husband announces he has found someone else and her mother dies. Suddenly Nathalie finds herself with freedom to do as she will—but what does she want to do with that freedom?

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In the process she also discovers that there have been changes in the world that she may not have noticed. Her publisher wants to make changes in her textbook for marketing reasons, but it goes against her grain. When she connects with a former student, she visits him at the commune he lives at with others who have adopted an anarchistic approach. There is a sense that without the comfortable environment of her former life she may not really fit in the world around her.

This plays out with a very understated dramatic sense. As is often the case in real life, the events that happen to us, even those with major consequences, are often not tumultuous. We may even overlook the import of an event at the time and only see its meaning in retrospect. The new path she finds is also one of subtle change. As such, this film plays out in a very measured pace.

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There is a certain intellectual component to the film as well. Since she teaches philosophy there are various questions and writers that find their way into the story. So we may note a family vacation to the grave of French writer Chateaubriand, or discussions of Blaise Pascal’s Pensees, or even a subtle comparison of the music of Woody Guthrie to Brahms.

The film doesn’t use or require a great deal of emotion to move the story along (although it isn’t a cold, barren piece). It is really more a film for the mind than the heart (although it isn’t heartless). It asks us to consider the main theme of essays she grades early in the film: “Can we put ourselves in the place of others?” We are asked to consider if we can put ourselves in Nathalie’s place and contemplate the changes of life that occur through the years and perhaps to reflect on those changes that have influenced us that we may not have noticed.

AFIFest – Honoring Heritage, Women

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The American Film Institute has a mission that includes “to preserve the heritage of the motion picture, to honor the artists and their work and to educate the next generation of storytellers”. A visible part of AFIFest is honoring the heritage and artists of the past. AFI has especially been interested in noting important women in the history of filmmaking. This year that is seen in some of the key art used at the festival which include images of three diverse women.  The women honored this year are Dorothy Dandridge, the first African-American to be nominated for Best Actress Oscar; Ida Lupino, an actress, writer, director, and producer; and Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American actress to gain international prominence. The Festival is also screening three films of these women, Otto Preminger’s 1954 film Carmen Jones starring Dandridge, Lupino’s 1953 film noir The Hitch-hiker, and E.A. Dupont’s 1929 film Piccadilly featuring Wong.

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A part of honoring current artists can be seen to the Sunday night gala honoring actress Isabelle Huppert that will include a screening of Elle. In Elle Huppert plays Michèle, a strong, independent woman whose world becomes shaken after an attack and rape in her own home. When she discovers who her attacker is, she begins a deadly game of interacting with her attacker. The psychological drama has lots of twists along the way—both in the plot and in the characters. The film is currently open in New York and opens Wednesday in L.A. My full review can be read here. Elle is France’s official Oscar entry.

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Speaking of Isabelle Huppert, she also stars in Things to Come which played at AFIFest today. As Nathalie, Huppert plays a woman who must deal with a husband who has found someone else and leaves her, and then the death of her mother. As a woman with newfound freedom, she is challenged to reinvent the world around her and to establish what her place will be within that world. Things to Come is set to open in theaters December 2. A fuller review will be posted then.

Photos provided by AFIFest

Elle – Obsessions and Revenge

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“It’s twisted.”

That brief line of dialogue defines Paul Verhoeven’s Elle in more ways than one. The plot certainly has very interesting turns along the way, but the convolutions of the personalities are what really make this entertaining and interesting. This is an intense psychological thriller, with the accent on psychological.

Michèle (Isabelle Huppert) is a strong, domineering woman. She runs a video game company in a no-nonsense style. She brings that into her personal life as well. The first hint we have of her past is when she is in a café and another customer walks by and dumps food in her lap muttering about “you and your father.” Michèle’s mother is keeping a much younger man—something Michèle finds somewhat pathetic. We learn her father is in prison with a parole hearing approaching. But things really heat up when Michèle is attacked and raped in her home. She seems to go on like nothing happened, but she fantasizes about killing the attacker. When she learns who did it a tense and very perverse game begins to unfold.

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But this is more than just a revenge film. In fact, we may not even see it as such because we’re never quite sure if that is really what is driving Michèle. Perhaps for all the terror of the attack, she may find it perversely stimulating. Perhaps it provides a balance for the sense of control she manifests in the other aspects of her life. Perhaps, as we learn more about her past, we might wonder if she is emotionally disturbed. Likewise her attacker is also something of an enigma. Between the two of them the tension grows both sexually and emotionally to levels we know can only lead to disaster.

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The film is essentially about obsessions. Certainly sexual and violent fantasies often play out together (compare the video game Michèle’s company is working on). Such obsessions are central to the developments between Michèle and her attacker. For Michèle’s mother it is an obsession with youth. Michèle’s history tells of strange issues her father dealt with that had lasting effects on her and of people’s perception of her. Obsessions such as these take control of lives. So all the emotional protection that Michèle has built around herself comes falling down when the attack brings chaos into her life. That struggle between chaos and control creates a dangerous atmosphere that threatens to undo her and twist her life even more than it has been.

Yes, It is all very twisted (especially all the characters). Delightfully so.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics