(Published in Filmleaf.)


Buñuel recollected in maturity

Pushing age 100, Oliveira shows he’s more than just keeping a hand in with this elegant Parisian drama starring cinematic veterans Michel Piccoli and Bulle Ogier, a meditation on the theme of Buñuel’s Belle de Jour that considers what might happen if two of its principals were to meet again forty years later. The focus is on Piccoli, who in the opening scene spots Ogier in a small concert hall when they’re listening to Dvořák. The handsome hall, seen in long shots, sets the formal, stately tone.

Henri Husson (Piccoli) pursues Séverine (Ogier), but she’s driven off quickly in an expensive black car. He then spots her in a chic bar (all this takes place in the 1ière and the 2ième, the chic heart of Paris) and again she escapes in the car, but he orders a succession of double scotches and the handsome young barman (played by Oliveira’s grandson, Ricardo Trepa) is very willing to talk and reveal Séverine is living in a hotel. There’ again a young desk clerk doesn’t hesitate to say which room the lady’s in, but M. Husson just misses her.

More heavy consumption of whisky and conversation with the young barman follows while a young prostitute and an old one (Leonor Baldaque and Julia Buisel) are always in a booth eavesdropping and commenting. Husson tells the story: how he urged a masochistic woman into betraying her husband over and over in order to enjoy his faithfulness, without ever telling him about it. The barman comments that this is the kind of story he gets to listen to quite often; the bar is a kind of confessional.

Eventually Henri manages to stop Séverine in front of a shop. She rushes off, but he gets her a gift there, a box. It’s the box with the buzzing inside of Buñuel's film, and later the couple eat in a private dining room – she arrives very late. It’s a formal, surreal ritual, in which Mme. sips champagne and M. pours down the scotch; they quickly consume three elegantly served courses without exchanging a word. She rushes off, and in her place a rooster appears in the hallway – a reference again to Buñuel and the surrealists. What does emerge before that is that Séverine is another person entirely now; that she regrets everything and considers entering a convent; and that Henri’s becoming an alcoholic he considers a kind of asceticism. The conclusion is bizarre, but there’s a strong sense, certainly appropriate for a director whose age leads him to contemplate death, of wickedness that has lost its interest and its sting. Certainly a unique product of a unique filmmaker. Paris at night is used beautifully in a way that avoids cliché. Piccoli in the larger role is mellow, as he is nowadays, and enjoying himself. Ogier seems appropriately in pain, and the once-chilly Deneuve character now engenders sympathy.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.