MELO
A Film Review by Manavendra K. Thakur
Copyright 1988 by Manavendra K. Thakur and The Tech
Reproduced with permission.
1986 112 mins. France French with English Subtitles Unrated Mono Color 35mm/1.85
Cast: Sabine Azema, Fanny Ardant, Pierre Arditi, Andre Dussollier, Jacques Dacqmine, Hubert Gignoux, Catherine Arditi.
Credits: Directed by Alain Resnais. Produced by Marin Karmitz. From the play by Henry Bernstein. Camera: Charlie Van Damme & Gilbert Duhalde. Music by Philippe Gerard. Art Director: Jacques Saulnier. Set decoration: Philippe Turlure. Costume: Catherine Leterrier. Sound: Henri Morell & Olivier Villette. Editing: Albert Jurgenson & Jean-Pierre Besnard.
Studio: MK2 Productions / Films A2
Distributor (North America): European Classics
4818 Yuman St. NW
Washington D.C. 20016
(202) 363-8800
As some commentators have remarked, the French cinema in recent years has noticeably paralleled the decline of the American film industry, leaving only pockets of vitality. Among the French directors who have retained a serious commitment to artistic quality is Alain Resnais, whose first feature HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR heralded the beginning of the French New Wave in 1959. His newest film, MELO -- short for melodrama -- is an excellent filmic adaptation of the 1929 play by Henry Bernstein. It also demonstates why all the acclaim given to Resnais over the years has been thoroughly deserved.
Sabine Azema, previously seen in Bertrand Tavernier's A SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY, won the Best Actress Cesar (French Oscar equivalent) for her performance as Romaine. She is the carefree and flirtatious wife of Pierre Belcroix (Pierre Arditi), a quiet unassuming man who is content to work as the first violinist of of the Colonne Concert Orchestra. One evening in June 1926, Marcel Blanc (Andre Dussollier), one of Pierre's good friends from their academy of music days who has become a reknowned concert violinist, comes to dinner to Pierre's home on the outskirts of Paris.
During the ensuing conversation, Marcel laments his inability to maintain romantic relationships because his partners cannot provide him with the complete trust and fidelity he needs. Both Romaine and Pierre listen intently to this Diogenes-like tale, but Romaine finds herself being intrigued by Marcel's romantic lassitude, and she soon becomes his mistress. The melodrama begins when Marcel, who must leave for a world concert tour, makes Romaine promise that she will wait for him to return so they can be together freely. Conflicts that arise later between the three characters include deceit, broken friendships, attempted murder, and suicide.
While the plot reminds one of the kitsch of modern day soap operas, MELO is far more intelligent due to the sophistication with which Resnais has integrated film and stage aesthetics. The film is organized into several acts -- complete with curtain fall and rise -- with stylized sets and lighting that delberately evoke theatrical artifice. In addition, the style of acting is that of the stage, with long soliloquies, speeches instead of conversation, and the like. Resnais uses these elements to explore the melodramatic aspect of human relationships in abstract terms from a distanced perspective, rather than with cheap sentimentality and triteness. The opportunity to experiment in this manner is probably what attracted Resnais to Bernstein's play.
Within this stage production, however, Resnais leaves no doubt that he is primarily a film director, especially in the opening dinner scene when Romaine first meets Marcel. The camera shows the three characters seated at an outdoor tabel, with Marcel on the left side of the table, Pierre on the right, and Romaine in between facing the camera. After dinner, Marcel talks about a woman who accompanied him to his Havana concert of Bach's 3rd Sonata. Marcel's love life was tragically scarred when he noticed her "making love with her eyes" to a stranger in the audience. This moment of perceived infidelity ruined, says Marcel, their relationship and led to his disillusionment with romance.
As Marcel begins to tell his story, the camera pans slowly forward towards the table. Always including Marcel in the frame, the camera tracks smoothly around the table, glides past Pierre and Romaine, and comes to a halt with Marcel's upper body in medium close-up. As the camera is moving, the lighting becomes more low-key, and the city sounds and cricket chirps fade away to silence, leaving only Marcel's voice as he goes on with his story. The camera stays focused on Marcel for what seems to be several minutes, while Marcel never actually looks directly into the camera.
The result is mesmerizing. The camera, light, and sound manipulations are executed just slowly and smooth enough to be imperceptible. It is not until after Marcel's monologue ends that the viewer realizes how thoroughly engrossing the film's depiction of Marcel's reverie is. In this complex mise-en-scene, Resnais fuses the respective strengths of stage and film with such consumate skill that one forgets how fundamentally different the two aesthetics in fact are. This seriousness of purpose and willingness to experiment is what distinguishes Resnais' work from the commercial mainstream. He achieves such fascinating results because he is able to create and maintain tensions of distant intimacy in ways that would be difficult in either medium alone.
Resnais has been criticized for lavishing such elaborate attention on a play that may not deserve it. But this ignores that Resnais is a consumate artist. One need only look at the film's title to recognize that Resnais deliberately stripped the melodrama of its triteness in order to examine the very real emotions at the heart of the play. By rejecting the tyrannical demands of conventional narrative and invoking his considerable technical command, Resnais has most certainly taken a step beyond the work of Douglas Sirk and others who have explored melodrama. Indeed, Resnais may have created the most ideal cinematic realization possible of an inherently melodramatic stage play. His adaptation is the thinking person's melodrama, a film that eschews immediate emotional appeal without losing the ultimate impact of the issues it raises.
Filmography of Alain Resnais:
HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR 1959 91 mins. LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD 1961 94 mins. MURIEL, OU LE TEMPS D'UN RETOUR [MURIEL] 1963 116 mins. LA GUERRE EST FINIE [THE WAR IS OVER] 1966 122 mins. FAR FROM VIETNAM [Co-dir w/Jean-Luc Godard, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Agnes Varda, and Joris Ivens] 1967 JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME 1968 STAVISKY 1977 117 mins. PROVIDENCE 1977 107 mins. MON ONCLE D'AMERIQUE 1980 123 mins. LA VIE EST UN ROMAN [LIFE IS A BED OF ROSES] 1983 111 mins. L'AMOUR A MORT 1984 90 mins. MELO 1986 112 mins.
Alain Resnais' accomplishment in MELO is somewhat a departure from his previous work, but it leaves no doubt that his creative vitality has survived the passage of almost thirty years since his first feature. He remains among the leading directors of French and world cinema.
Manavendra K. Thakur
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thakur@athena.mit.edu
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