580 - The Lovers (Les Amants), France, 1958. Dir. Louis Malle.

Monday, January 21, 2019

580 - The Lovers (Les Amants), France, 1958.  Dir. Louis Malle.

The Night is a Woman.

Jeanne Tournier strolls in her white nightgown across her verdant lawn.

Her husband Henri has gone to bed.  Her lover Raoul Flores has gone to bed across the hall.  In the Green Room.

They live in a chateau in Dijon.  A large estate.  Henri owns the newspaper.

A third man, the architect Bernard Dubois-Lambert, stands waiting in the shadows around the corner of the mansion.

Jeanne talks to us, as she has been talking to us throughout the film, in voice-over.  "It was as if he'd been expecting her, yet did not seem to recognize her."

He approaches.  She turns.  She gasps.

It's you.

She walks.  In the moonlight.  He follows.  In the shadows.

He follows behind her.  Approaches her.  Arrives next to her.  They talk.

You must be happy living in such a lovely place.
If only it were not in the provinces.  I prefer Paris.
Paris.  It is the flavor of the day.  Is that what you like?
When I am tired, everyone bores me, and you are boring me now.
I do not mean to.
Can you not leave me alone?  I need to think.
Let's think together.
(I cannot stand you.)
I agree.  At times I can't stand myself.
Quite often, I imagine.  What do you do then?
I dream about beautiful things.

They mildly argue for a moment, and then she runs into the woods.  This is a large estate.  They have lots of woods.

She arrives at the water wheels.  The wheels are turning.  One hears the sound of the water flowing.  And the frogs.

He joins her.  Recites poetry.

The moon rising in cloudless skies suddenly bathed her in its silver beam.
She saw her image glowing in my eyes.  Her smile, like an angel's, did gleam.

She smiles.  Looks up at the sky.

The night is beautiful.

She goes to her drink.

The night is a woman.

He goes to his drink.

Where did these drinks comes from?

They set their glasses down at the same time.  Outside under the moonlight.  On the shelf next to the water wheels.

He clutches her hand with his.  Their fingers intertwine.  We tilt up from their fingers to their faces.  They come together.  Their noses nearly touch.  They move in to kiss one another.

Let me go!  You have no right!

She breaks from him and walks away.  He goes to her.  Embraces her.  Runs his large hand over her hair.

She speaks to us in voice-over.

Love can be born in a single glance.  In an instant, Jeanne felt all shame and restraint fall away.

Coup de foudre.  Shot of lightning.  We are getting used to it by now.

She smiles.  She slowly turns and faces him.  Looks into his eyes.  They walk together.

She speaks to us:  She couldn't hesitate.  There is no resisting happiness.

They hold hands.  They walk through the field in the moonlight.  They walk across the meadow.  The tall grass blades wave in the breeze.  Tall, meaning as tall as their heads.  They walk through the grass.  They walk down the lane.  They walk beneath the trees.

Is this a land you invented for me to lose myself in?

They cross a footbridge over a short waterfall.  A rapids.  She shows him the traps her husband sets.  They pull a trap out of the water.  He opens it.  He lets all the fish out.  Back into the water.  As if undoing her husband's work.  Setting free her husband's catch.  Setting Jeanne free.

Now they are free to kiss.  They stand.  They kiss.  On the footbridge over the waterfall.  His large hands stroke her hair.  She embraces him.  He holds her.  They caress each other's necks.  His white shirt and her white gown glow in the dark in the moonlight.

They are personally serenaded by the film's score.  Brahms'  Sextet in B-flat Major.  It plays plaintively beneath them as they walk to the water.

They get into the rowboat.  Push off from the dock.  Lie down.  Embrace.  Kiss.  Without rowing or steering.  Allowing the current to take them where it will.  As they are now doing with their lives.

The moonlight shining through the trees speckles their faces.  Dapples their skin.  A natural cucoloris.  Floating down the river like a Disney ride.  Jungle Cruise.

The boat touches shore.  They emerge.  Make their way to the house.  The dog barks.  A light turns on in the window upstairs.  Henri is awake.  He opens the shutters.  Sees nothing.  Closes them.

They enter the mansion through a back door.  Walk down a back corridor.  Walk up a back staircase.  Enter Catherine's room.

The light shines through the blinds in diagonal lines across her body.

He waits for her.  She tucks in her daughter.  Her little girl.  Sleep, my little Doll.

They walk down the hall locked in an embrace.  Unconcerned with the risk.  Her husband Henri could step out into the hall at any moment.  Her lover Raoul could step out into the hall at any moment.

They pass the painting on the wall with the woman's breast nearly fully spilling out of her falling clothing.  And enter Jeanne's room.

Then the night happens.  The night that made this film an international scandal upon its release.  Which is tame by today's standards.  Even restrained.

Louis Malle stated simply that he was tired of panning the camera away to the window, as all movies did back then.  So he let the camera stay upon the lovers a few seconds longer.

Then he panned it away to the window.

This film is quite romantic as long as you do not think about it too much.

Louis Malle was proud of it.  Because it made him a household name and made him a lot of money.  And he liked playing the bad boy.

Louis Malle was 25 when he made it.  Jeanne Moreau, his real-life lover, was 30.  He wanted to showcase her.  It was her 22nd film.

He says he wanted to treat the coup de foudre idea, the shot of lightning, in a film immediately after scoring success with Moreau in Elevetor to the Gallows (1958).  Thus, the films were released just eight months apart.

By now we are becoming familiar with the coup de foudre concept in French film, and there have been moments when we have found them to be deliriously delicious.  Love strikes like lightning.  And the people are never the same.

And here, she is beautiful, the romantic environment is beautiful, the moonlight is beautiful, and the Brahms music is beautiful.

In fact, it is every frame a Friedrich.  A Caspar Friedrich.

But how many people will go for the plot in a literal way?

For many it may be illogical.  Coup de foudre is by definition illogical.  But it has its own logic, and this story defies even that.  She just met the man a few hours ago in the midst of racing home to get to her lover before her lover meets her husband without her.  Now she is in the arms of a total stranger.

Maybe one could argue that her husband was so boring that she found herself in the affair with her lover without really loving him, and now she has finally met the man she really loves.  OK . . .

But the husband never really does anything wrong.  He does not cheat on her.  He is not cruel to her.  He is simply busy with his job and does not give her the level of attention she desires.  In other words, he is a man.

Then the moment of lightning strike does not come across convincingly in the acting.  Their arguing does not play as banter but as real arguing.  She seems genuinely annoyed by him.  And then all of the sudden they are kissing.  There is no build up.  No transition.  No moment of discovery.  No epiphany.  And no layers of sexual tension or heat beneath the arguing.  Just annoyance that turns instantly into romance.  It is a bit hard to swallow.

Then there is the fact that she has a daughter.  A young daughter.  Malle states in one of the interviews contained on the disc that many people criticized him for giving her a daughter.  Why not let her go cleanly?  He defends his choice.  He says otherwise she would have come home two weeks after realizing that she has made a mistake.  But by abandoning her daughter, she has to make a life choice.  An all-or-nothing.

But many viewers may believe she will come home in two weeks anyway.  If not sooner.  Because of her daughter.  And because she knows nothing about this man that she just met.  As they get to know each other, will they not discover that they have nothing in common?  If he annoys her now, how much more will he annoy her when the fantasy wears off?

Sorry, dude, but you were a kid when you made this movie, and you did not know what you were talking about.  This twelve-hour love affair would fall apart within days.

We enjoy coup de foudre.  And we enjoy seeing it in French films.  We are just not convinced we have seen it happening in this one.