LA SEPARATION
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Phaedra Cinema Director: Christian Vincent Writer: Christian Vincent, Dan Franck, novel by Dan Franck Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Isabelle Huppert, Jerome Deschamps, Karin Viard, Laurence Lerel, Louis Vincent, Nina Morato, Jean-Jacques Vanier, Estelle Larrivaz, Gerard Jumel, Christian Benedetti, Frederic Gelard, Claudine Challier
When President Clinton and his wife Hillary were in Russia during the late summer of 1998 meeting with Yeltsin, Hillary introduced him everywhere: "This is Bill Clinton, the president of the United States." Why is this unusual? In every previous instance, she would introduce him as "my husband, Bill Clinton." So says Joe Klein, a top political columnist in a recent issue of the New Yorker magazine. That's not all. "B touches H gently on shoulder as she passes. H stares straight ahead." This too from the notepad of Joe Klein. A small matter? Nope. Significant? You bet it is. If you doubt the gravity of this subtle body language, sit through Christian Vincent's engrossing film "La Separation," a 1994 picture released in New York and other markets this October.
"La Separation" deals with a couple who have been living together for just about two years. They have a lovely child of eighteen months, Loulou (Louis Vincent) who is cared for largely by a young and attractive nanny, Laurence (Laurence Lerel). You could probably imagine that when life was rosier, Anne (Isabelle Huppert), a business executive, introduced her lover (Daniel Auteuil), as "Pierre, the man I live with." Now that their relationship seems to be headed south, she'd probably inform everyone, "Meet Pierre: he's a commercial artist." How do we know this? By the little things that mean a lot. They sit in a crowded theater watching an Ingrid Bergman movie. Pierre is more interested in Anne than in the screen. He closes his palm around hers. She pulls away. "I'm trying to watch the film," she complains. He pouts. They still live together, attend parties, and visit their best friends, Victor (Jerome Deschamps) and his live-in girl friend Claire (Karin Viard). But their connection is frayed and is not likely to be patched together. "La Separation" is about reality. It is not at all influenced by American-style optimism.
The glory of "La Separation" is that Christian Vincent captures it in a distinctly different style from the way an American romance-gone-sour would be played. There is just one violent scene that's over in a flash. The man is at first quite understanding when his live-in lover tells him flat-out, "Pierre; I think I fell in love with someone." We all know how a red-blooded Texan would react to that, and for that matter look at how Takuro Yamashita (Koji Yakushi) responds in Shohei Imamura's Palme D'Or winner at the '97 Cannes Festival, "Unagi." A blood bath results when he falls upon his wife in flagrante delicto with another man.
"La Separation" is a simple enough story of a relationship gone bad. If this were an American movie, a critic would seek Anne's motivation for alienating Pierre's affection. Here it's not necessary: in fact the audience is encouraged to guess, based on what the mature, intelligent viewers have experienced or witnessed in their own lives. Perhaps, as is quickly hinted, she got bored while he suffers. No matter. What does count is that "La Separation" features two first-rate actors whose every gesture speaks volumes about their feelings. Isabelle Huppert, who dazzled critics and audiences alike in the far more action-filled drama "La Ceremonie," proves her mettle once more by communicating her emotions by a twitch of the right eye here, a look to the side there. She elevates the film, produced by the famed Claude Berri, far above melodrama by turning her feelings on and off unpredictably. One moment she is agreeing to Pierre's decision to separate, to live apart. In a twinkling she rests her head lightly on his chest in a show of tenderness which in the hands of another actress would seem laughable if not downright bizarre.
Pierre is not so able to hide his emotions. He lets it all hang out with his pal Victor, probably a mistake because no one can really help a man who is losing not just the woman he cares for but the infant he cherishes and has carefully and regularly videotaped. When he appears toward the conclusion red-eyed, dazed, not knowing even how to get home, even the passing taxicabs sense that something is wrong and refuse to stop for him. While director Vincent may not have intended us to take sides, we can't help feeling that Pierre is being treated unfairly. But what "La Separation" really wants to say, I think, is that life is unfair, romantic love is fleeting, and that the two lovers face an existential dilemma that is all too common. As one character reports, "Love stories start rosy, then the relationships go to the dogs."
La Separation is obviously not for an audience targeted by producers of Van Damme films, nor is it even for the folks who think a show is first-rate because "I laughed, I cried." It's for a discerning constituency seasoned enough to have been battered by life's inexplicable impasses, people who can empathize equally with a couple who have loved and lost through no apparent fault of their own. The understated performances by Huppert and Auteuil are nothing short of astonishing.
Not Rated. Running time: 88 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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