Francois Ozon's "Le temps qui reste"

[mouton]

LE TEMPS QUI RESTE
Written and Directed by Francois Ozon


To a great extent, the premise of French director, Francois Ozon’s latest film, LE TEMPS QUI RESTE, reads like a daytime drama storyline. An attractive 31-year-old photographer is told he has an extreme cancer that has spread through his body. It cannot be removed and, though treatment is an option, he does not have a strong chance of survival. He has but a few months left to live. What elevates this film above the potential for clichéd melodrama is the way the photographer, Romain (played by Melvil Poupaud), reacts to this news. He has little time to resolve his life and relationships. He has little time to fully embrace who he is. Yet he does not make peace with everyone in his life, one by one. Instead, he avoids the whole damn thing. Only, as he avoids, he manages to find the foundation of these relationships and begins to understand their significance, how they have helped shape the man he is. He puts his life into perspective his way and finds out that all this time, despite his selfish existence, he has also been a part of something much bigger.

LE TEMPS QUI RESTE is thankfully brief as no one wants to spend too much time watching someone die. It does however make the most of the time it has. When Romain first learns the news, he avoids sharing it with anyone in his life, from his family to his boyfriend to his employer. As he sits at a family dinner and people ask what is new in his life, it is painful to watch him say nothing, especially as he continues to withdraw. Poupaud’s performance humbles Romain as he goes from cocky and assured to constantly being overwhelmed by his own grief. He looks afraid to say that he is dying, to make it real, to place that pain on anyone else. Instead, he buries it and suffers silently. You want so much for him to reach out to the people who clearly love him that when he doesn’t, you just want to wrap your own arms around him. When he finally does share the news, his choice of confidante is calculated. He chooses to tell someone who can understand because, as Romain so plainly puts it, she too will be dying soon.

Along with Romain, the viewer has some resolution, some peace brought back to a time of chaos. Romain spends so much time convincing himself that the people around him do not need nor deserve to know about his condition because their relationships are so complicated. Only his solitude brings him the clarity necessary to remember how these relationships began. More importantly, these memories are the ones he associates most cleanly with naïve, unchecked happiness. With death imminently waiting for him, the search for happiness that he gave up on is rejuvenated when he sees how close he was to it all the while. Romain’s memories come to him at random moments and their nature demonstrates the talent of Ozon as writer and director. They are simple memories that may have seemed all too simple at the time they took place but these memories went on to bring Romain closer to others and himself. And as the memories come more frequently, he learns to integrate them into his current reality. Thus when he goes, he goes having lived a short but full life.

Death is a construct, an inevitability, a mystery, a fear to face. In LE TEMPS QUI RESTE, it is also a process that is nothing more than the last clue to understanding your life. In Romain’s final moments, death becomes necessary to complete the journey, a journey that would mean nothing at all if it weren’t ending to begin with.

[Chris Knipp]

Would have seen this, if only for the wonderful-looking Melvil Poupaud, who I love in Eric Rohmer's '96 Summer's Tale (Conte d'Été), but missed it in NYC and it seems not to have gotten here yet. Do you think it's up to Ozon's best work? It seems to have done okay in reviews, but some say that it's not.

[mouton]

Hey Chris ... Clearly I thoroughly enjoyed the film. To call it Ozon's best or at least on par with his best would involve me having seen many of his other films. I've really only seen SWIMMING POOL, 8 FEMMES and SITCOM. I did not love SP and SITCOM is insanity ... fun insanity but comparing LE TEMPS QUI RESTE with it would be like comparing later with early Almodovar. I also enjoyed 8 FEMMES but its so much farcical than this film is. LTQR is so gentle and pensive; there is a seriousness that is not present in the other films I've seen. Got any recommendations?

[Chris Knipp]

An honest and helpful answer. Well yes I can see you enjoyed and admired the film, but I wasn't sure if you admired and enjoyed it purely for the delicacy of its subject matter or for its quality as film or both, because in your comment you talked more about the story than about the filmmaking.

I've glanced at a few reviews online. One said it was interesting that the main character was a "heel," so the deck isn't loaded in his favor, but we still view him sympathetically. That gives me a slight handle on it. Of course I haven't had a chance to see it yet, as I said. Judging by the summaries on Allociné, it did really well with the French critics, which I pay attention to. I also play close attention to the ones that are unimpressed, though.

I've found Ozon's work a mixed bag. There are a lot of early ones I haven't seen, but I've seen a few more than you, including his first one, Photo de Famille (1988); the very titillating, edgy Criminal Lovers (1999); Water Falls on Burning Rocks (a definitely gay entry, also 1999, and a simple but elegant handling of a Fassbinder scenario, but hardly a profound piece of work); Sous le Sable/Under the Sand, with Rampling, which got him mainstream US recognition; followed by 8 Femmes (2003), farcical but packed with audience-attracting female French stars; Swimming Pool (2003), again with Rampling skillfullly used, but which like you I didn't like much (I thought it was clever and facile and tried to be mainstream and succeeded, again winning good US box office for a foreign film). Then came the pretentious and boring 5x2 (2004), which tries too hard to be "important" and arty, using a by-now-tired trick of reverse chronology.

I guess Criminal Lovers was my favorite. (I'd recommend it and Water Falls on Burning Rocks, and though I didn't find Under the Sand as deep as many people did, you need to see it to know Ozon's work, I guess, because it's one of his most famous ones; it's also been linked with this new one because it also deals with death.) Maybe Criminal Lovers is just playing with shock value but it worked for me; it took me someplace disturbing and thought-provoking. Your comparison with Almodóver is probably doubly relevant (they have a shared tendency to be alternately campy and solemn), but which Almodóvar is the better one, the earlier or the later? My favorite of his is the more somber Talk to Me, so I guess for me the answer is the later Almodovar is the better one.

Anyway, I'm skeptical about Ozon by now. No doubt that he's talented, but he doesn't seem to me to know what he wants to do, or whether he wants to play to the popular/arthouse audience or work for himself, and he seems to like toying with wickedness and outrageousness; you don't know whether he's serious or not, and maybe from the first he didn't know either (see Photo de Famille). So I'm skeptical about Le temps qui reste, but I want to see it, and I like Melvil Poupaud, who's been in a huge number of films, 46 items (a couple TV things) listed on IMDb, and he's only.33. Is he like the "it" boy of French cinema now or something? And after this one he wrote and directed a movie called Melvil.

Photo de Famille is included with Sitcom, isn't it, on the DVD? On the one I saw; and it is very revealing of his outlook and talent.

"Oeuvres" of Ozon listed on IMDb indicate he's made 28 films in 18 years and started well young, which gives him something in common with Melvil Poupaud, though he's five years older, it's still astonishing for a guy of 38 to have made that many films, but is he goig for quantity rather than quality? Is he long on self-expression but short on self-criticism? Yeah, maybe, but I can sympathize with this kind of artist....

[oscar jubis]

*Assorted comments regarding Ozon and his films:

Ozon developed his directorial skills very gradually. He made 17 shorts before he directed a feature (Sitcom). By then, it was evident he was well versed in the formal aspects of cinema, but had yet to develop as a writer. I found both Sitcom and Criminal Lovers extremely shallow, perhaps exploitative. The outrageousness and pessimism seemed like an affectation. The problem was that the characters lacked dimentionality; they feel to me like ciphers driven by inexplicable impulses. I think Water Falls on Burning Rocks is Ozon's first good feature, and that he has continued to make progress. Under the Sand is my favorite, highly dependent on Charlotte Rampling's brave, spellbinding performance. But the others are not far behind. Unlike Chris, I though that the reverse chronology of 5x2 is more than a mere trick. Each chapter forces the viewer to constantly reappraise what precedes it, and to reasses the motivations of the two main characters. Consequently, one's opinion about the characters is altered throughout the film.

There are commonalities between Ozon and Almodovar, but one can take that too far. Ozon has a lot more in common with Fassbinder than with Almodovar. Certainly, both are drunk on cinephilia. All their films reference and pay homage to films from other directors and to their own past films. 8 Femmes, inspired by Cukor's The Women, is a compendium of film references, a most intertextual film I'm convinced Almodovar likes very much.

[Chris Knipp]

Obviouisly Ozon made a lot of little movies. How much he learned is another question, but he certainly acquired polish. Everything Ozon does is equally dubious and exploitative, but also interesting and bold, even when it's sometimes shallow, and the polish tends to hide the shallowness. I have enjoyed many of his films, and admired several. He's really neither Fassbinder nor Almodovar and probalby not a talent equal to either.. I don't agree with you, but of course his way of just throwing things out there without huge conviction but with polished method ropes in many audience members, and maybe that's okay. Who says a film has to have deep conviction behind it to be good? I guess we all three agree that Swimiming Pool isn't all it was cracked up to be. I'm hoping that this latest one will turn out to be exemplary of a new serousness of purpose, a genuineness he has lacked even in the gloom of Under the Sand. I'm sure I'm taking an unusual stand in liking Criminal Lovers, but intentionally so. 5x2 seems a stillborn effort and I'm not the only one to say so, but its show of high seriousness works for some people. Time will tell. As I said, Le temps qui reste has gotten very nice press in France, and after all, they can detect what's going on better than foreigners can. Even if it hasn't a lot of dialogue, it's in French and its sensibility and locales are French. A majority of writers had nothing but praise for Poupard's performance.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Everything Ozon does is equally dubious and exploitative, but also interesting and bold, even when it's sometimes shallow, and the polish tends to hide the shallowness.

You can see from my last post that I disagree with you on this. Dubious and exploitative? Only the first two features. The difference, beginning with Water Falls..., is attention to character.

I guess we all three agree that Swimiming Pool isn't all it was cracked up to be.

I don't know what it "was cracked up to be", to be honest. I do like Swimming Pool, which might reveal more about Ozon and his creative process because he identifies so strongly (based on several available interviews) with the character played by C. Rampling and her approach to writing.

I'm hoping that this latest one will turn out to be exemplary of a new serousness of purpose, a genuineness he has lacked even in the gloom of Under the Sand.

After 5 consecutive good features, I have no doubt that Le Tempts qui Reste will maintain that level of quality. I'm told it was well received at the 2006 G&L festival here (Poupaud was in attendance but I couldn't make it). For what it's worth, IMDb viewers rate it second to Under the Sand of all Ozon's films. Themes of suffering and dying seem to reoccur in Ozon's filmography, and his latest is no exception.

[Chris Knipp]

I wish you were right about Ozon; it would be nice if he were as good as you think he is. I hope this new one will be a winner. Obviously I have more points of contact with mouton on this than you, since he "did not love" Swimming Pool. You say he has had "5 consecutive good features"; that's just your opinion, not the universal one. I don't think you'd find many who liked all of them. I'm afraid I didn't really like any, and I find his conversion from a hip gay director to a pseudo-profound mainstream one unconvincing. His work never carried much conviction; it was provocative and sometimes fun. Now, I don't know..... but hope springs eternal and for the third time, Allociné, which I pay close attention to for French films, shows a very, very positive reaction from the French critics on this one. Plus there's the presence of Jeanne Moreau, and I like Poupaud--his looks anyway (I bet Ozon does too). What fun to kill him! Ozon started out by killing off his whole family! ... but I've come to associate Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi with pretentious B.S. Anyone's insistence that a new unseen film has got to be good turns me off; your own idol Mr. Rosenbaum calls (http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/briefs/30277_TIME_TO_LEAVE_LE_TEMPS_QUI_RESTE.html) Ozon "highly uneven," which is certainly a justified remark, and seems quite unimpressed--after seeing the film, that is. mouton's sensitive response shows that this one is capable of moving. . .the right people. I guess you'll love it and I hope I do, at least like it.

[mouton]

Wow, gentlemen. So much debate considering neither of you has seen LE TEMPS QUI RESTE. Imagine what you might be saying if you had. Chiming in again on the film, I found it to be very insightful and heartbreaking. Character Romain has such reserved reactions to the news of his imminent death that I felt that I had to be there for him as he wasn't allowing anyone else that chance. It is a smart move on Ozon's part; one that certainly incited a closeness and affection for an Ozon character I had not felt previously, even in my limited viewing experience of his past work.

I feel that you both will sense a different direction for Ozon with this film. It is quietly and deeply humane. And even as I write this, I know that Oscar will likely disagree with me as that seems to be the pattern.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by mouton
Wow, gentlemen. So much debate considering neither of you has seen LE TEMPS QUI RESTE. Imagine what you might be saying if you had.

You gave us a forum to discuss Ozon's career, although we've barely scratched the surface. I will opine about Le Temps Qui Reste after I watch it and place it within the context of his filmography (which it's a valid endeavor because I've seen all his features). As Chris said, Ozon is "probably not a talent equal to either" Fassbinder or Almodovar. Yet I would disagree with Rosenbaum qualifying his films as "highly uneven". I share his admiration for Under the Sand but I find Ozon's last five films consistently good (but certainly not great).

And even as I write this, I know that Oscar will likely disagree with me as that seems to be the pattern.

Generally speaking, I agree with you on Scoop and disagree with you on Little Miss Sunshine (although I quoted an observation you made just to call it "good" and I don't disagree with your take as much as Tabuno did, when he called it "the best movie of the year so far"). I do point out differences of opinion in the hope that a discussion can lead to some type of learning or a broadening of one's perspective.

[Chris Knipp]

It is quietly and deeply humane. I'll remember that.

[regardelamer]

Can anyone upload this short for me? I bought the Sitcom VHS, but it wasn't included with it. I know it is on the DVD, but I would rather not rebuy the movie to see Photo de Famille and Victor.

I would appreciate it, if anyone could do this for me!

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry, I got it from Netflix. But it important to see because it tells so much about Ozon.

[regardelamer]

Yes, I know.. That is why I want to see them so bad. Is there any other way to see them, without buying the dvd all over again? I wish they had put the shorts on the VHS, as well.

Please, someone upload the shorts: Victor and Photo de Famille.... I really want to see them!

[oscar jubis]

If you look at the last half dozen films of François Ozon, they've been witty, edgy, even probed mysteries, but there seemed an element of fakery, of playing a game, holding back. There were times when it was hard to believe any of it. Time to Leave/Le temps qui reste, with its heavy subject, tempts one even more to say, "This is crap." It seems to easily set up to be Important, and some have dismissed it as empty and glib. But that's not so. (Knipp)

At a roadhouse, he talks to Jany, a waitress (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, a strong presence in a brief role). Surprisingly, she asks him to give her a child -- a chance for a legacy -- but he declines saying he's not interested in children. (Knipp)

Another good-not-great film by Ozon. I really liked the scenes between the boyfriends, and between Poupaud and Jeanne Moreau. At first the extreme cruelty towards the sister confounded me, then I found a way to make some sense of it. But Jany's request is, for me, that element of fakery that you mention in the first paragraph.

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry, mouton--I forgot you started a thread on this film. I'm moving my Last Film I've Seen review of it over to here now:

François Ozon: Time to Leave/Le temps qui reste (2005, US release 2006). Netflix DVD.

If you look at the last half dozen films of François Ozon, Criminal Lovers/Les amants criminels (1999), Water Drops on Burking Rocks/Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (2000), Sous la Sable (2000), 8 Femmes (2002), Swimming Pool (2003), 5 x 2 (2004), they've been witty, edgy, even probed mysteries, but there seemed an element of fakery, of playing a game, holding back. There were times when it was hard to believe any of it. Time to Leave/Le temps qui reste, with its heavy subject, tempts one even more to say, "This is crap." It seems to easily set up to be Important, and some have dismissed it as empty and glib. But that's not so. For the first time in Time to Leave, Ozon deals with home truths he might himself know or care about, and he shows unusual sympathy for his hero, chic young gay fashion photographer Romain (Melvil Poupaud, ideally cast, as we shall see) who discovers he's mortally ill. After Romain decides he's not got a chance to recover from his cancer and won't get treatment, he has dinner with his parents and Sophie, his sister (Louise-Anne Hippeau). He is cruel to Sophie, but in the car with his father (Daniel Duval), he is caring; he weeps. Ozon doesn't hesitate to provide wickedly sexy moments, as when Romain gets his young Germanic lover Sasha (Christian Sengewald) high on coke and chokes him as they grahically make love, then kicks him out.

In show business since the age of ten and the veteran of more films than he can count, Poupaud is perfect looking, with his thick, rich hair, his immaculate brow, yet has a cold, by-the-numbers quality about him that makes him a classic Ozon figure for this story. His lips are pursed a little prissily. His button eyes don't seem to look at anyone. You can't look away from him though: he has a presence; perhaps it's ego; perhaps it's purely his practiced ease onscreen. Anyway, Ozon keeps us on edge, because his Romain isn't going to do the conventional things. He isn't going to tell people, he isn't going to make peace or say goodbye.

But he does go to see his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau) to tell her he loves her, and to reveal to her, and to no one else in his life, what's happened to him. They're such a pair, he says if only he'd met her sooner, he'd have married her. At a roadhouse, he talks to Jany, a waitress (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, a strong presence in a brief role). Surprisingly, she asks him to give her a child -- a chance for a legacy -- but he declines saying he's not interested in children. This begins to look like a twisted Calvary. Sasha is gone, Romain is growing more unwell and washes down his pills with vodka. There is a slight rapprochement with his sister, with Sasha, even with Jany and her sterile husband. He shaves his head and grows disturbingly thin, memories of himself as a child haunt Romain, yet things are more transgressive than solemn, and one has the impression Ozon doesn't quite know where to go with this, how to carry it to the end. But he has managed to bring the story of a death toward a new direction. And as slick and cold as he is, Ozon's dying hero, Romain, manages somehow to embrace life and to go out with class.

[Chris Knipp]

I want to set apart my reaction to the film from Oscar Jubis' in this context now.


Oscar Jubis wrote:
Another good-not-great film by Ozon. I really liked the scenes between the boyfriends, and between Poupaud and Jeanne Moreau. At first the extreme cruelty towards the sister confounded me, then I found a way to make some sense of it. But Jany's request is, for me, that element of fakery that you mention in the first paragraph.Time to Leave is more sincere than most of Ozon and closer to home so I personally would NOT classify it as yet another Ozon film that's "good but not great." This one is better than most of the others -- if only in purely human terms -- but what terms matter more? It's not in any sense merely clever, which a lot, if not all, of the others are. Jany's request is far-fetched and strains our credulity a bit, but it's not what I meant by "fakery." Fakery would be the whole second half of Swimming Pool and the latter part of Under the Sand, which contain storytelling elements that are smoke and mirrors. Jany's request is perfectly straightforward, it's just an odd occurrence, a "surprising" event. But if this is a "twisted Calvary," it will contain miracles as well as torments.

Oscar is quoting from my recent brief description of Ozon's Time to Leave/Le temps qui reste which is printed above (originally posted on the Last Film I've Seen thread).
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=16839#post16839

The rest of that opening quotation he quoted is


It [Le temps qui reste] seems too easily set up to be Important, and some have dismissed it as empty and glib. But that's not so. For the first time in Time to Leave, Ozon deals with home truths he might himself know or care about, and he shows unusual sympathy for his hero. . . Time to Leave is more authentic than Ozon's previous films, though it has less razzle-dazzle. What people like is the razzle-dazzle--the shock value of Criminal Lovers, the camp of 8 Women, the surprises and puzzles of Under the Sand and Swimming Pool. If they look for that in Time to Leave they'll be disappointed, and if they look for melodrama or grand gestures they'll also be disappointed. But if they look for a sybaritic gay man's severe and honest approach to his own death, they may be impressed.

Sorry not to have gone back and read mouton's original review, posted a while ago. He expanded his point of view further down the thread:
mouton writes:
Chiming in again on the film, I found it to be very insightful and heartbreaking. Character Romain has such reserved reactions to the news of his imminent death that I felt that I had to be there for him as he wasn't allowing anyone else that chance. It is a smart move on Ozon's part; one that certainly incited a closeness and affection for an Ozon character I had not felt previously, even in my limited viewing experience of his past work.

I feel that you both will sense a different direction for Ozon with this film. It is quietly and deeply humane. I think both mouton and I have been reserved about generalizing about the film or its merits because we'd rather let it speak for itself, but I find that I agree with mouton and my reservations prior to seeing the film were mistaken.

[Johann]

Thanx for this thread guys.

As a huge Ozon fan, I appreciate your dialogue here.

My favorites will always be Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 8 Women.

There's something that really grabs me about Ozon's style.
I'll watch any film by him.

Isabelle Huppert deserved an Oscar for Huit Femmes.
That film is delicious- the songs, the performances, the absurdity.

Ozon seems to push the envelope with a slightly perverse bent..

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks, Johann. I'm always interested in Ozon's next film, he surprises. My opinion is that this is his most serious one, but he totally avoids going all mushy in it.