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10. 6.06
NYFF: "Private Fears In Public Places."
Alain Resnais' "Private Fears in Public Places" is, like his 1993 film "Smoking/No Smoking," an adaptation of a play written by British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, which explains why its six characters act so oddly prurient about sex and so oddly excited about tea-drinking. It's hard to say if it would have been a less tiresome film if set in London; as is, the setting restrictions necessitated by a play combine with the constant snow (it even manages to invade scene transitions) and the initial pan over a slightly obvious model of the city to give the impression that the film takes place not in Paris but in a giant souvenir snowglobe.
The urbanites in "Private Fears" long for human connection and meaning, as urbanites are often wont to do. Nicole and Dan (Laura Morante and Lambert Wilson) and engaged and looking for an apartment together, but he's out of work and drifting, whiling his days away at a hotel bar, and she's getting more and more frustrated. Thierry (André Dussollier) is their real estate broker, who lives with his lonely sister Gaelle (Isabelle Carré, an unexplained quarter-decade younger than her supposed sibling) and who's taken a romantic interest in his religious coworker Charlotte (Sabine Azéma). Charlotte has a side job as a caretaker for the elderly and infirm — she's currently looking after the father of Lionel (Pierre Arditi), the bartender at Dan's watering hole of choice.
"Private Fears" telegraphs its intentions from far off, but its problems are less awkwardness than absence of believability. The coy theatrical nods (in most of the settings, the camera stays in one room, even as characters step out of view into others, and the lighting sometimes consists of a flat-out spotlight) aren't anywhere as distancing as the fact that every character's problems are laughably one-note. There's a bit of charm to the film's irony-free pining and epiphanies, but it's a dusty one, as creaky as one plotline's reliance on the wonders of recording TV shows onto a cassette. We wouldn't quibble about dated technology normally, but the film goes out of its way to also show characters flashing cellphones that don't at all figure in to the action of the film. They may be intended as a reassurance of the film's contemporary setting, but they're more an unfortunate sign that the once cutting-edge Resnais, now in his 80s, no longer has any sense of the contemporary urban life he's trying to depict.
Screens October 6 and 7 at Alice Tully Hall.
Comments
While reading your review, something hit me. Your belief that the characters’ problems are "laughably one-note" was my exact reaction to Funny Ha Ha. The post-grad faux-malaise of Bujalski's characters was indeed laughable, though it quickly grew irritating. But Bujalski isn't courting me as a viewer -- he's preaching to the choir, and that's fine.
I bring that up because maybe something similar can be said about Coeurs -- that the "absence of believability" on your part stems from an inability to identify with (or imagine) the prospect of being alone and desperate in your 40s (and beyond). And why should you? As I said in my own review, I would have most likely had little use (or patience) for this film 15 years ago.
Maybe there will be a time when the prospect of a good cup of tea is more appealing than hooking up. (God, I hope not.) But to say that Resnais has lost the "sense of the contemporary urban life he's trying to depict" is perhaps a bit unfair. If his characters were in their 20s, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. And while I can't claim to be anywhere nearly as miserable his characters, their concerns, fears, and reactions felt all too familiar and real.
Perhaps I'm guilty of inverted ageism, but I can't help but feel your review is more informed by a subjective identification (or lack thereof) then it is by anything else. Don't get me wrong, I'm not using that as a dig -- it's pretty much my modus operandi -- but as a regular reader (and your #1 fan) I feel compelled to defend a film that meant a whole lot to me.
You kids have your Shortbus, where happiness is just an orgasm away. But for those of us who can no longer get away with that, we have Resnais.
Sincerely,
Cranky old condescending Filmbrain
Posted by: Filmbrain | Oct 13, 2006 10:21:17 AM
