Nénette et Boni (1996)

reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten


NENETTE ET BONI By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Strand Releasing Director: Claire Denis Writer: Claire Denis Cast: Gregoire Colin, Jacques Nolot, Alice Houri, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi Nenette et Boni takes place in Marseilles but as the film progresses, that French seaport town looks more like Metaphor City. Winner of the 1996 Locarno Film Festival Best Film award, this movie is nothing if not original: though its dysfunctional family theme has been dramatized in thousands of narratives, from Agamemnon, Medea and Lysistrata through Hamlet and The Myth of Fingerprints, director Claire Denis has forsaken narrative structure for a particularly elliptical method of telling her story. Particularly inviting is her way of letting her principal character slip into fantasies and dream sequences without giving the audience much of a clue as to which is reality and which is the illusion. But all this structural technique takes a back seat to the film's hub, which is the particular bond felt between the title characters, who are brother and sister. Denis seems to say throughout that there is something quite special about this attachment, a link not as closely associated with that between parent and child or an individual and his friends. Brothers and sisters may argue and become distant, suffer episodes of envy and hate; but they are the same flesh and blood. As Ms. Denis stated in an interview, "We don't know the bodies of our parents as we know those of our brothers and sisters....We were fed with the same milk, something creates a tie." Cinematographer Agnes Godard's camera focuses most of the time on 18-year-old Boni (Gregoire Colin), who, in an opening sequence fires his BB gun at his neighbor's cat. But he is a good lad, one who takes loving care of his adorable white bunny. A school dropout, he spends time in a pizza wagon when he "feels like working," but Boni, who like his sister Nenette despises his father, has a fantasy life that would be the envy of Walter Mitty. When he kneads the pizza dough, it is obvious to the audience that he is metaphorically caressing a woman's breast. When he gazes tenderly at a brioche, he is likewise thinking of a bosom. Boni has wet dreams particularly of a woman (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), the alluring and happy wife of an American baker (played humorously by the American actor, Vincent Gallo). We often are not sure whether his relationship with her is part of his fancy or is reality, particularly in a scene in which she has invited him for coffee and he is strangely passive. The core of Claire Denis's movie is the affinity between Nenette and Boni, each possessing what the other is lacking. Boni is tragically lonely, seeking connection though his dreams. He needs someone to fill the space. His 15-year-old sister Nenette, by contrast, is burdened with the last thing she wants: she is seven months' pregnant, too late to abort, and utterly indifferent to the baby when the birth takes place. The chemistry between brother and sister is the high point of this drama. Gregoire Colin is perhaps known to the American art-house crowd from his role in "Queen Margot" and has appeared in a number of French films with limited or no exposure in the States. Throughout the moments of friction between him and his sister, played by the Alice Houri (who has had relatively little exposure in film), the audience senses the love that flows beneath the surface, a fondness that reaches its peak when Boni rescues Nenette from a particularly silly attempt at home-made abortion. "Nenette and Boni" is likely to be off-putting to those who believe that cinema, as opposed to theater, is a realistic medium. Denis takes her time to develop her characters, during which duration we are unsure of what she is getting at. The piece comes together by the conclusion as Boni finds fulfillment, leaving Nenette at bay, yet to work out her difficulties. Not Rated. Running Time: 103 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten


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