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| Blanche Gardin and Lea Seydoux in France |
The shifts are disconcerting, pointedly so, helping us feel the dislocation of France's life. France seemingly has little connection with her husband and son. She occasionally drops by to see them (housed in a luxe apartment with an incredible art collection ranging from classical antiquities to a painting by Gilbert and George), but spends most of her time working at the studio or jetting off to interview Tuareg freedom fighters. An automobile accident causes her to reevaluate her life. In a more conventional melodrama, this incident would push her to be a more warm and compassionate human being. To a certain extent, this happens to France, but Dumont is too ambivalent about his subject matter to take the easy way out. France, feeling her life is veering out of control, quits her job and takes a rest cure at a sanitarium in the Alps; much like in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. There, being French, she has an affair with a mysterious stranger. The affair does not lead to a happy denouement, but to more chaos and confusion in France's life. The film takes even more twists and turns, but I am not going to play the spoiler.
I appreciated Dumont's satire of the media. Reality, in our time, does not just exist for itself, but, also, as a staging ground for its reenactment on mass and social media. France is both complicit in this and a victim of it. She is shown staging her news reports, both with the Tuareg fighters and a boatload of refugees, for maximum effect and ratings. Being a media star, she has sacrificed her privacy. She is constantly being besieged by her admirers for autographs and selfies. She is also sometimes confronted by vociferous detractors. Her life becomes tabloid fodder.
Dumont also seems to be trying to make some sort of statement, and I think he is less successful here, about France as a nation The film opens with a shot of the French tricolor flapping above the presidential palace. President Macron makes a cameo, fawning over a flippant question from France. The film is rife with images of Parisian landmarks. A long shot of France's auto accident tip its chapeau to Gustave Caillebotte. I'm not sure what this all means, but it is targeted for local consumption and partially explains the bafflement of American critics. French culture and priorities are quite different from our own. The Cartesian dualism and Catholicism of French culture stands in opposition to the Protestantism and objective utilitarianism that dominates the perspectives of most Americans. When Americans see a character like France suffer, and no one suffers more chicly than the French, there is a disconnect. We see her her luxurious lifestyle and eye popping couture and wonder how she can be unhappy. What an irritating woman, we fume, she has it all and is still miserable. American see material trappings well enough, but have problems discerning the outline of a soul. The French accept that the two are poles apart.
France primarily worked for me because of the performance of Ms. Seydoux. She is in every scene and carries the film on her shoulders. It is not an ingratiating or showy performance, but one that seeks to show the mask a woman has created for self preservation. The cracks that appear in her façade are the raison d'etre of this film. Dumont is very gifted with performers and France contains a cast that offers nary a false note. Blanche Gardin is particularly entertaining in the Eve Arden role as France's wisecracking assistant. Still, this is Seydoux's show. If it is time in France for a new Marianne, France could do a lot worse than Ms. Seydoux.
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| Gustave Cailletbotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day |
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