The French Art of Seduction

First Run Features

R1 DVD Set

French with English subtitles

This collection of four French films has nothing to do with seduction. What you get is a couple of beautifully made films and a couple of less effective ones, each dealing with the problems of love and human relationships in a different way. We see it through the eyes of different directors.

La Petite Lili

There is not much seduction in this film, in fact the closest we get is Lili (played by the lovely Ludivine Sagnier) in a brief, tasteful nude scene at the start of the film. What we get is a nice story about ambition, love and changing priorities.

Lili is a country girl in love with Julien, a young would-be film maker who lives at his mother’s chateau. Julien’s mother Mado is a fading starlet but her boyfriend Brice still casts her in his films. Lili wants fame and fortune like Mado. Julien and Mado do not get on with each other so when Julien shows shorts of his proposed film starring Lili, Mado is scathing. Maybe she just can’t handle the youthful aspects of his work, maybe she is jealous of Lili’s appearance and acting ability in the film. Julien is broken by her rejection – it seems that getting his mother’s approval of his work is his greatest challenge – but Brice tells Julien he must just keep trying because success or its lack is a part of Julien, part of being a great filmmaker.

Lili meanwhile sees Brice as a chance to get into the industry as an actress. When he leaves Lili goes with him, following a brief flirtation.

Four years later Lili and Julien meet again. Lili’s life seems to be going well and Julien has just got funding for a new film. The film is about those last days at Mado’s chateau. Lili desperately wants to play herself in the film but things have moved on. Julien is married with a young child. What happens now?

The film is one of those that film critics love to pull apart, discuss exhaustively and pass judgment. It is, after all, based loosely on a story by Chekov. I, however , watch films for pleasure and La Petit Lili is good entertainment. It has that rather indefinable something that so many good French films have. It may be a product of good acting, beautifully photographed scenery and superb acting. Whatever it is, it lifts this story well above the average.

La Vie Promise (The Promised Life)

A film with absolutely no seduction in it at all, but a sensitive plot and superb acting. Silvia is a rather worn out prostitute who has had a tragic past. She had a daughter and fell pregnant again, but just before the birth of her son she had a nervous breakdown. While in the asylum she managed to forget a lot of her past, her husband and her children. Now her fourteen year old daughter Laurence has skipped from foster care and made contact with her.

At first Sylvia rejects the girl but then relents, not wanting to see Laurence make the same mess of her life that Sylvia has. Laurence has walked away after stabbing Sylvia’s pimp and now Sylvia must find her to reestablish contact. The two must evade the police as well. With the help of a car thief, Joshua, who is also on the run for who-knows-what, they make their way back to Sylvia’s home town. She hopes to find refuge with her ex-husband. Bit by bit in the familiar surroundings her memory returns. Meanwhile Sylvia and Joshua are becoming closer and Laurence is beginning to see him as a father figure.

This is another superbly acted film. The attractive Isabelle Huppart as the middle aged Sylvia is simply brilliant, but Pascal Greggory gives a powerful and restrained performance as Joshua. Unlike Huppart who must show a wide range of emotions, Greggory provides a solid trustworthy foundation for the two women to base their new lives on. No seduction, just great acting and a powerful script.

Seaside

Like the previous films in this compilation this film contains no hint of seduction. That is a pity because it desperately needs something to spice it up.

It is set in a dreary little French beach village and we get a slice of life of some of its dreary occupants. The “beach” is simply an expanse of pebbles – no sand, no waves. The pebbles are mined by a local firm and sold to the ceramics industry. It is the only industry left in town and working there, sorting rocks all day, is about as mind numbing a job as you could imagine.

The characters in the film are as dreary as the job. Many are related in some way and all they seem to have in common is a absolute lack of determination to leave the dying village and seek a future elsewhere. It’s not so much that they are unhappy in the village, but that they seem to have been flattened under the life of stultifying boredom. The only mild excitement is when a shark is seen in the bay and the beach is closed. The shark sees how dreary it all is, then leaves. I don’t blame it, but I would like to have seen it eat a few of the characters first.

One interesting character stands out in the general mediocrity. Rose, part of the family that once owned the pebble factory, is a compulsive gambler and there are occasional fun moments watching the family trying to keep her out of the casino. Her compulsion is not funny, but trying to get her away from the slot machines is. It is not enough to save the film from being, simply, boring.

Even the cinematography makes the village look dreary – muted colours, leaden sea, and the heaps of pebbles. Some directors can use the soft French light to enhance a film but here it just seems to flatten everything. Apart from a brief flash of nudity there is not a hint of sexuality to brighten the film. The film won a Camera d’Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival but after the previous films in the compilation it was, to me anyway, a huge dreary disappointment.

La Desenchantee (The Disenchanted)

I had high hopes for this film, since it starts the lovely Judith Godreche. I was disappointed. First, the insubstantial plot offers nothing much for her to display her talents. She plays Beth, a young student who is challenged by her violent and selfish boyfriend to show her love for him by having sex with the ugliest man she can find. Huh? It’s not much of a hook to hang a plot on and director Benoit Jacquot completely wastes what plot there is. There is no hint of seduction or even mild excitement.

Beth forms a relationship with a writer, who discusses poetry with her. Her mother’s doctor, known to the family as SugarDad, is supplying them with a little money to exist on. He offers more, but Beth knows there will be conditions involving sex with him. So does her mother, who seems quite happy to see her in a moneymaking sexual relationship. Beth has only one friend, Chang, a fellow student. We only get brief moments with some of the characters so they are left undeveloped.

Beth herself spends a lot of time looking wistful, but she seems to be a bit of an airhead so it is hard to sympathise with her troubles. Perhaps this could have been corrected if we could learn more about her but without knowing her we can’t really like her. The only character who seems to develop a personality is Beth’s younger brother who is shown as being mature beyond his age.

It is nicely filmed but without at least half a plot it just doesn’t work for me. It was Jacquot’s first film so I can make some excuses for his lack of experience. It’s just that the plot is so pointless and he didn’t do anything with what there was of it.

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