UNDER THE SAND (Sous le Sable)
Marie (Charlotte Rampling, "Aberdeen") and Jean (Bruno Cremet, "Sorcerer") are a comfortable, sixty-ish married couple looking forward to a peaceful vacation at their second home in Lit et Mix. On their first, full day, Marie sunbathes as Jean goes for a swim. Hours later, Marie's initiated a full scale search when Jean hasn't returned, but no trace of him is found. Marie returns to Paris and resumes her life, including chats with Jean at the end of each day in Francois Ozon's "Under the Sand."
Marie's ex-pat British friend Amanda (Alexandra Stewart, "Frantic") and her French husband Gerard (Pierre Vernier) try to snap Marie out of her denial with a dinner party, where they introduce her to the handsome Vincent (Jacques Nolot, "Nenette et Boni"), yet Marie suggests that Gerard accompany her and Jean to their gym the next morning. Eventually Marie does begin dating Vincent, but she discusses him with Jean and even smiles at Jean, hidden behind a bedroom curtain, when she makes love to Vincent.
Slowly, though, reality continues to chip away at Marie's fantasy life. Her bank advises her that without access to Jean's account, she needs to reduce her spending. One of her university students (she's reading Virginia Woolf's "The Waves") turns out to be one of the young men who participated in the beach search. Then police arrive asking her to identify the clothing of a body they've found washed up from the ocean. That night, Jean's not at home when she returns to their apartment. Her mother-in-law (Andree Tainsy) cruelly
insists that Jean simply abandoned her out of boredom. Finally, Marie goes to the police, insisting on viewing the body. Horrified (she's been warned it was
in an advanced state of putrefaction), she laughs when handed a bagged watch, insisting that this is not her husband.
"Under the Sand" is a character study and melancholy portrait of aging ('I've lost my youth,' Marie declares) and loss. Charlotte Rampling, given the chance to portray an older, yet still sexual, woman runs with it, bringing us into the mind of the character. Her chemistry with Bruno Cremet is startlingly natural. As Marie returns from her first date with Vincent, she sits on the couch with Jean. 'Did he kiss you?' he asks. The mood the two create is incredibly intimate and sad.
Ozon ("Water Drops on Burning Rocks," "See the Sea"), who cowrote the script with Emmanuelle Bernheim, Marcia Romano, and Marina de Van, has turned in a more mature work than his previous, creepy "See the Sea." While he cleverly never lets us see Jean enter the water that fateful day, leaving a number of possibilities - accident?, suicide?, escape? - open, he definitely tips his hand towards a certain outcome.
Cinematography by Antoine Hiberli and Jeanne Lapoirie ("Water Drops on Burning Rocks") glides around Marie (their 180 shot as she initially searches the ocean's horizon for a sign of Jean conveys her panic) or captures Rampling's exotic face in mood divining closeup. In an inventive fantasy scene, Marie imagines Jean's hands massaging her feet while in a state of auto-arousal. His two hands become four, then more combined with her own, becoming almost a one person orgy and recalling Roman Polanski's "Repulsion." Original music by Philippe Rombi quietly adds to the overall melancholy.
"Under the Sand" is a unique portrait of loss. It would make an fascinating double bill with Liv Ullmann's "Faithless" from earlier this year, another character study of a woman facing loss for different reasons.
A-
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