Take One (Jul 1978)

FILM REVIEWS POURQUOI PAS! Directed by Coline Serreau A Dimage/S.N.D. Film, produced by Michéle Dimitri. Written and directed by Coline Serreau. Cinematography: JeanFrangots Robin (Eastmancolor). Music: Jean-Pierre Mas. Cast: Sami Frey, Mario Gonzales, Christine Murillo, Nicole Jamet, Michel Aumont, Mathe Souverbie. Between shots for his L’ordre et Ja sécurité du monde, Claude d’ Anna managed to denigrate most of his fellow directors in France and ended by claiming that there was no hope for the French cinema: ‘‘Absolutely none. The cinema is dead. We metely pretend it is alive because the corpse is still moving a little, but that is an illusion created by the/ maggots.’’ With the relatively rare exceptions of new films by such veterans as Resnais, Chabrol, Pialat, and Bresson, or by relative newcomers like René Ferret and Claude Miller, the French cinema does indeed seem moribund. Going regularly to see new French films in Paris means having to sit through hundreds of thousands of metres of mostly color footage appallingly exposed by secondand thirdrate hacks, many of whom manage not only to manufacture box-office hits but garner a serious and enthusiastic (sometimes international) critical following as well. Lelouch, Truffaut, Zidi, Lautner, Verneuil, Giovanni, Robert, de Broca, d’Anna, Berri. . . the list is endless and depressing, and made infinitely more so when, for example, the once-prestigious Prix,Louis Delluc (accompanied by ecstatic critical notices and the jingle of francs at the box-office) is awarded to a flat nostalgic vacuum like Dizblo Menthe, whose débutante director, Diane Kurys, giggled during an interview that “When I started shooting I didn’t know one end of the camera from the other,’’ as if she were telling us a secret which had not already been revealed by every tell-tale frame of her film. Still, there is hopeful evidence that d’Anna is at least a bit hasty. The French cinema is ailing, but it’s far from dead, and help is clearly on the way. Luc Béraud, Miller’s collaborator, for example, is at work on his first feature. That, however, is yet but a promise. Much more concrete is Coline Serreau’s remarkable fictional feature debut, Pourguoi ‘pas! An actress since 1970—primarily on stage and principally in Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, As You Like It), Coline Serreau wrote the scenario for Bertucelli’s On s’est trompé a’ histoire d'amour, in which she also played the leading role. Deciding that she wanted to direct, she went about it professionally: after studying the technical aspects of cinema, she made a television short, ‘‘Le Rendez-vous’, in 1975, and then went on to direct a full-length documentary, Mais 10 A lyrical, non-realistic fairy tale for adults, a love story without sentimentality. qu'est-ce qu'elles veulent?, which was shown in the ‘‘L’Air du Temps’’ section at the Cannes Festival last year. She began with the intention of asking women from various walks of life to describe their idea of Utopia, but soon discovered that the women she interviewed never got around to addressing the subject, so busy were they in describing their work, struggles, and life in general. Keeping herself as ‘‘invisible’’ as possible, Serreau allowed the women to speak for themselves, and what had started as a “training film’’ for herself, ended as a fresh, human, ‘‘feminist’’ document refreshingly free of rhetoric. The scenario for Pourquoi pas! having been ready for two years, Serreau then felt herself prepared to make it into a film. Her professionalism and theatre training helped her to choose the cast, whom she then rehearsed every day for over a month before they ever saw a camera. Mario Gonzales, the young Guatemalan actor who plays one of the major roles in the film, and who has acted for Cassenti, Mnouchkine, Bokanowski, Dugowson, Belmont, and most recently for Losey, claims that Serreau was the most exigeant of them all. ‘‘She rehearsed and re-rehearsed every gesture, every look. The scenario she wrote was the scenario she planned to film, without a word or a comma changed. That led to a great ease and speed when we came to shoot, but it also led to innumerable problems with some of the cast. Sami Frey in particular evidently thought that his love scenes with me and all the nudity—which is very discreet in any case—would be ‘“‘negotiated’’ when it came time to film them. Coline firmly pointed out that he had read the scenario, had signed the contract, and had rehearsed. That was what he had accepted, and that was what she expected. There were scenes, but Coline got her way, which is how it had to be.’’ None of this tension can be. discerned from the film itself, however, nor can the endless budgeting problems be detected. Due to Serreau’s lucid grace and firm grasp of technique, the film seems simple. The camera moves when it should, to follow a character or to make connections between actions. The camera placement is precise; each shot has that certain sense of being just right. The images are functional in that they further the narrative, reveal character, and underscore emotion. They are never just ‘‘beautiful shots’’; remember Rossellini’s saying “‘Why should any individual image be beautiful in itself? That’s not what movies are about.’’ Serreau’s care has provided the film with the sense of a free, spontaneous life. There is no false ‘‘poetry’’ applied to the film like some sort of baker’s glaze, but poetry nonetheless grows out of the characters and situations. Two men and a woman share a house and a bed and love each other fully in and out of them. The elder of the two men (Sami Frey) sees to the cooking, sewing and housework, while the younger (Mario Gonzales) earns a little money playing the piano, and the woman (Christine Murillo) supports them all by reading to bed-ridden older people. Feeling vaguely unfulfilled, the older man goes off for a while with another woman (Nicole Jamet) and the ‘‘family’’ begins to fall apart until he brings her back to join them. They have problems, which they solve together; they laugh and cry, suffer and triumph, together. There is no plot in the usual sense, but there is a wealth of detail, character, and incidents, some of which are very funny indeed, which move the film constantly and naturally forward. While Serreau begins with what looks like conventional realism, it becomes clear soon enough that she is using realistic conventions as the basis for a lyrical, non-realistic fairy tale for adults, a love story without sentimentality which is tied only to the reality of an ideal development of human emotions. In doing so, she makes no false moves. Scenes of sexual intimacy are handled with consummate taste: frank without being clinical, ecstatic and relaxed by turn without being coyly lyrical. It is an honest film. Perhaps best of all, it is a constructive, positive film which makes one feel good about being alive and human. A life-enhancing shout of joy, it is a breath of fresh air in the asphyxiating atmosphere of French cinema. David Overbey David Overbey is a Paris-based freelance writer, and ts Take One’s Paris correspondent.