Benoît Jacquot / Jacques Doillon on DVD

[arsaib4]

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[Chris Knipp]

I guess the high end sets won't be cheap but maybe I should look for such Doillon DVD's when I'm in Paris. Ponette looked like sentimental treacle I confess -- a francophone friend years ago seemed to think so, and so I have passed over it at video stores a dozen times, obviously an oversight since it is a chance to see Doillon's work. Thank you for this information. I'd love to see how he handles the young actors in Petits frères, which is said to be wonderful, and I'd like to observe them in action too for cultural understanding of the banleiu scene.

[arsaib4]

Thanks. Looking forward to your thougths on Seventh Heaven.

Ponette isn't as sentimental as it seems like; although, the final reel is certainly an anomoly for Doillon.

Petits Frères turned out better than what I expected, but it's earnest to a fault. The DVD carries a short interview with Kent Jones, one of Doillon's admirers in this country.

[Chris Knipp]

My thoughts, as requested, and happily given:

SEVENTH HEAVEN is a subtle, witty delicately unfolding story about the rejuvenation of a marriage and about magic. I think the metaphorical message here is that relationships and what makes them work are both mysteries. There are many thought provoking and amusing little touches. François Berléand as the "charlatan" is the deus ex machina, whose methods may be peculiar and credentials dubious (he vanishes, like a criminal, from his offices) but whose treatments of Mathilde nonetheless succeed. Berléand has a strange sullen apartness that works here differently from the way it worked when he played the former "mentor" of the young Quentin in Jacquot's École de la chair. The irony is Mathilde's husband Nico's disturbed reaction and the shift of responsibility to Nico via Mathilde's mother when Mathilde becomes sexually responsive and happy. The film has a delicate wit. And like a comedy, it ends with throwing out the rules (the feng shuei) and getting back together (the love talk over the closing credits is classic romantic comedy stuff). Vincent Lindon, a talented and versatile actor, is appealing as the husband, Sandrine Kimberlain, who plays Mathilde, is also Lindon's real-life mate and his own son plays the couple's charming little boy. He already displays the comedic talents of his father. And his character is part of the rejuvenating magic, as indicated by the link between the hypnotic trance experience that brings on an orgasm and a children's book read to him, which is also a story Mathilde's father read to her before his sudden death -- all this is lightly scketched in, but carefully calculated too. I like Francine Bergé as Mathilde's mother. Seventh Heaven is a movie I may turn out to be watching repeatedly as I do Jacquot's École de la chair -- it even seems more thought provoking than the latter. However, I don't think it's as initially appealing, and I can understand why some audiences are left cold by it. Kimberlain is good, and she performs the transformation most convincingly, but she somewhat lacks charisma compared with the often astonishing and intense Huppert, and this is more a closet drama than School of Flesh, with fewer people, less 'action,' a more limited tonal (and social) range. As you mention above, Jacquot works elliptically, with a light touch, and you have to pay attention. But at the same time his screenplays (particularly this one) are cunningly structured and clear, which makes a good combination. Intentionally no doubt, most of the sets are alike, large, classic Parisian interiors, often with white-painted walls, very comfortable and bourgeois. The DVD is without frills (though at least the English-only subtitles can be turned on and off), which seems so far to be routine for US DVD's of French films.

Incidentally, everybody compares this with Jacquot's A Single Girl, but I haven't seen it.

[arsaib4]

Good point about its sardonic humor, something I failed to mentioned earlier. Seventh Heaven and The School of Flesh are quite different thematically so I'm not sure if they can be compared in any meaningful way. At times the former felt like a small, distant French cousin of Eyes Wide Shut which is obviously more "grand" in its scale. Yet both are flawed in their own ways.

[Chris Knipp]

I can see a relationship to Eyes Wide Shut, definitely. But definitely a finer, smaller scale. Jacquot is a sly one. I will look forward to seeing more of his films.