La Separation

Rating:
Summary: French blues
Review: Although based on a novel by Dan Franck with the same title, the name of this film is misleading. Parisian couple Daniel Auteuil and Isabelle Huppert have a crisis when Isabelle confesses that she has fallen in love with another man, but this doesn't directly lead to their separation. It's more like a 10 point study of suffering in co-habitation. The source material having been written by a man clues us into whose story we are seeing, typified by how Isabelle doesn't see how her affair should impact on their relationship, but Daniel does. He's all jealousy and frustration and she's understanding. That is, until his hostility breaks out. Director Christian Vincent casts a relative as the couple's child, who Daniel videotapes intermittently, and the blue tint of the video is carried over into a general blue lighting state for the whole film. Vincent also controls the actors so that both deliver restrained performances, with Isabelle wearing a lot of jackets. Daniel has a few amusing bull sessions with his best male friend (an opportunity Isabelle is deprived of), and has a memorable hugging moment. Vincent also gives us the most stressful flying kite scene I've ever witnessed, though I could have done without the film's obvious ending. A conversation with Isabelle resting on Daniel's chest is particularly striking, and she looks very beautiful when dishevelled and her hair covers her face. The soundtrack is bleakly silent, with only Glen Gould playing Bach's Goldberg Variations over the credits, and we get a clip from Roberto Rossellini's Europe '51 with Ingrid Bergman.

Rating:
Summary: Very real...
Review: Daniel Auteuil. Need I say more? I love him! If he is in a film, you can sure bet it is going to be a picture filled with depth and substance. He is one of my favorite actors, right up there with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. After you see this one, buy "The Girl on the Bridge", and see Auteuil show off his outstanding capability of playing a wide varitey of acting roles. One of the BEST in the profession!

Rating:
Summary: Flawless performances.
Review: Intimate and intense French drama details the painful dissolution of a relationship. Superb and mature performances make this movie highly appealing for french movies fans. It is a slow exploration of a family break-up when Anne told Pierre that she is seeing another man. Fans of Huppert and Auteuil will not miss this movie. The end is of course depressing.

Rating:
Summary: The End of Something
Review: Well if you are going through a break-up of your own and you want some company then this film is for you. The actors are what drew me to the film. Isabelle Huppert has been in at least a dozen great films including The Piano Teacher and Merci Pour Le Chocolat. I would recommend both of those films to anyone. She can play enigmatic very well. In her best roles though we eventually start to see glimpses into just what makes her enigmatic characters tick. In this role there is enigma but not enough glimpses behind the facade. She just plays a generic unhappy wife. Anne(Huppert) just stares at her husband (Auteuil) as if waiting for him to react in the opening scenes when she reveals she has fallen in love with someone else. One doesn't sense this woman is capable of feeling passion for anything though. The new love doesn't give her life any added spark. It seems more like a diversion from facing what the real problem is. It seemed to me the real problem was that Huppert's character felt nothing for anyone. This is partly because of the kind of actress Huppert is--remote. And when Huppert's character does express some belated emotion toward the end of the picture it seems forced. Other directors have used this remote quality that Huppert has to great effect by offering us clues as to why she became that way but in this film shes just remote.

Auteuil is fine. He is an actor who never hits a wrong note. What he portrays time and again is the lone brooding and quietly suffering type. He can play intense, in fact his characters are always intense, but his intensity is an inward intensity. There is not much chemistry between Huppert and Auteuil. For a movie about a break-up thats perfectly alright but its hard to imagine what these two characters ever shared and so it is hard to feel remorse that the relationship has runs its course. What is interesting is that though the passion between them is gone they still rely on each other because they know each other so well. And what is sad is that Huppert's affair though it turned out to be meaningless was enough to ruin a friendship which meant more to both of them than either of them ever knew until it was too late. The film is decidedly downbeat in its uncompromising look at a couples dissolution. And an honest film about such a topic could be no other way.