Catherine Deneuve

Le dernier métro [The Last Metro] (1980)

Le dernier métro [The Last Metro] (1980)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, September 2019) Distinctive for being one of writer-director François Truffaut’s last movies, Le dernier metro takes us backstage in Nazi-occupied Paris, as the story draws a love triangle between a theatrical actor who moonlights as a Resistance member, his opposite leading lady who owns the theatre, and her Jewish husband hiding underneath the stage. Executed with clever period detail, Le dernier métro borrows from theatrical lore, Nazi occupation atmosphere and romantic suspense to deliver a film that’s as rich as it’s long at 131 minutes. Featuring no less than Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu at their youngish peaks, feeling as if it misses an entire third act, the film culminates in a scene that straddles dreams and the theatrical stage, with a lack of a dramatic finale that weirdly plays in the film’s favour. Le dernier métro may not be one of Truffaut’s top-tier film, but it’s good enough to be worth a look, knowing that it’s not going to play out conventionally.

Belle de jour (1967)

Belle de jour (1967)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Criterion Streaming, August 2019) There’s quite a bit of (tasteful) perversity at play in Belle de jour, and it’s consistent with what I know of writer-director Luis Bunuel’s work. It does begin with a sequence that seems to go quickly from plausibility to complete deliriousness, only for the truth to emerge and make the sequence even more perverse as a fantasy. This lands us in the head of our protagonist, a married woman unable to be intimate with her husband, but increasingly tempted to become a high-end prostitute by day. Much of the remainder of Belle de jour is taken up with her experiences at the house where she practises her trade, various clients rotating through the film. Two more off-putting fantasies spice things up. It’s possible to see quite a few themes at play here, but the one I’ll highlight has to do with prostitution not as a sexual act, but as one of willing compliance—the protagonist learns from the other girls that the trade isn’t as much about pleasing clients sexually as presenting to them the façade of what they expect from a partner compliant to their desires. The switch between their two faces is fascinating and handled with a decent dark humour that prevents the film from being unbearable. Catherine Deneuve makes the most out of her 1960s doll-like features as the titular Lady of the Day—she’s fascinating and the film doesn’t have any trouble making us interested in what will happen to her next. I should also be noted that there is almost no nudity in Belle de jour besides a few exposed backs—the film takes place on another register, far more pernicious. It’s more interesting than I would have expected.

Les demoiselles de Rochefort [The Young Girls of Rochefort] (1967)

Les demoiselles de Rochefort [The Young Girls of Rochefort] (1967)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, December 2018) Just as I was tempted to dismiss writer/director Jacques Demy on the basis of the unbearable Les parapluies de Cherbourg, here comes the much better Les demoiselles de Rochefort to redeem it all. This far improved follow-up fixes my two biggest annoyances with the previous film: Much of the dialogue is spoken rather than sung, and it does feature a happy ending (even though it’s by mere seconds—the film does toy with its audience toward the end, perhaps keenly aware that those having seen Les parapluies de Cherbourg almost expected an unhappy ending.) That alone could have been enough to make it a good movie, but then it goes the extra mile. Not only does it feature a young gorgeous Catherine Deneuve and her sister Françoise Dorléac, but here is no less than Gene Kelly (visibly older, but still capable) walking in for a few scenes and a dance number. Very, very colourful, Les demoiselles de Rochefort makes the best of its coastal-town setting, starting with an elevated bridge dance sequence, then spending much of its time in a public square with a fantastically glassed-in café set. There’s a little bit of atonal weirdness when it turns out that there’s an axe murderer (!) hanging around, but otherwise the film is far more successful than its predecessor. “Chanson des Jumelles” is a great, memorable number, but it’s really the cheerful colourful atmosphere of the film that wins audiences over. I happened upon the movie by chance, playing as it was in the middle of the night on an unlikely TV channel, and almost gave it a pass. Only Gene Kelly’s name drew me in, and I’m glad it did—Les demoiselles de Rochefort is now one of my favourite French films of the 1960s, which is saying something considering the strengths of the decade for French cinema.

Repulsion (1965)

Repulsion (1965)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, May 2018) I’m still not too sure what to make of writer/director Roman Polanski’s Repulsion. I was bored for most of it, not because it’s a dull movie (it does feature a protagonist going murderously crazy) but because it seems like fifteen minutes of plot stuffed in an hour and a half movie. Once the protagonist’s slide into madness begins and the film reflects her inner reality, there aren’t that many places to go, and much of the rest of the film films both repetitive and preordained. To be fair, the film is effective, and perhaps for no better reason than star Catherine Deneuve herself: She looks like a porcelain doll at the beginning of the film, but there are incredible issues boiling behind her perfect façade—as superficial as it sounds, the film would have been a far lesser one with a less beautiful actress or one with a more aggressive kind of beauty. I’m tempted to think that movies have also moved on since 1965—the kind of subjective-perspective show of a schizophrenic breakdown has been remade so often since then that it has lost much of its shock. No matter the reason, I’m cool (but not cold) about Repulsion—it still works fine as a psychological thriller, but it probably could have been better by cleaning up the script and removing thirty minutes from it.