Director: Claire Denis (France). Year of Release: 2022A deserted Mediterranean coast. A middle aged couple are in the sea. They swim, they embrace then walk back through the waist-high clear water. Later they return to their hotel room looking thoroughly in love. But after some more idyllic scenes, they have to return to a much more mundane Paris where everyone is wearing a Covid mask and look at each other sullenly, if they make eye contact at all.Sara hosts a liberal radio show – in the first episode we witness, she interviews someone from Lebanon who is bemoaning the fact that the flight of middle class academics from the country feels more permanent than even during the civil war. Later she will interview the Black footballer activist Lilian Thuram. Sara is generally highly competent and on top of her job, but in the Lebanon edition she is distracted by something she witnessed in the car park.What she had seen was François, who we will learn is her ex and an old friend of her husband Jean, helping a much younger woman onto the back of his motorbike. François gradually starts to intrude into Sara and Jean’s life, offering him a job, and showing signs that he’d like to rekindle the romance with her. With the emergence of François, the sterility of Jean and Sara’s relationship becomes more obvious, and the doting couple from the opening scene starts to fall apart.Jean is tempted by the job offer, as he is finding it difficult to work after a long spell in prison. Before being an ex-con, he was an ex-rugby player, and actor Vincent Lindon really has the build and poise which makes him look the part. Jean regularly receives phone calls from his mother Nelly who lives in the province of Vitry, where she is bringing up Jean’s Black son Marcel, whose mother is back in Martinique. Jean has no real gainful employment, but regularly puts off seeing his family, telling Nelly that he is too busy working to call round. This is despite the fact that he regularly drives to Vitry to do his shopping. The gradual degeneration of Jean’s marriage is reflected in am indifferent relationship to the rest of his family. One one level, fair enough: many families are not the source of any inspiration, but Jean isn’t obviously interested in everything. In his arguments with Sara, Jean often has right on his side, while simultaneously behaving unreasonably. Even though we have just seen her in bed with François, when Jean confronts her about her infidelity – calling her a bitch and a slut -, we tend to side with her. This is because his behaviour is so controlling. Sara may be formally in the wrong, but it is clear that Jean wants to deny her any sense of self-expression.(fun fact: this evening’s show had German subtitles which rendered control freak as Kontrollfreak. That’s all, you can now return to the review).The growing tension between Jean and Sara shows how they are fooling themselves. When Sara denies that she has done anything wrong with François, you feel that she believes every word that she is saying, even though she is clearly spouting untruths. Sara seems to believe both in her relationship with Jean, and in the possibilities of something much more exciting with François, and makes no consideration of the inevitable clash which is bound to come up sooner or later.Marcel, meanwhile, is becoming disenchanted with a school which is boring, a father who shows little interest in him, and a grandmother/guardian, who is just, well, old. In a film about middle aged people, there is very little place for Marcus, who blames racism for his lack of opportunities. Jean’s reaction is to tell his estranged son that he is manufacturing excuses and that everyone is responsible for their own actions. Jean may or may not have a point regarding the individual case of Marcus, but this is French laicism at its worst – a white man lecturing a black kid about racism. Even though Jean is, in his awkward way, trying to ensure that Marcus does not make the same mistakes he did, telling him that he shouldn’t be so chippy about racism is not a good look. This further drives Marcus out and shows him that his family just doesn’t understand what he’s going through.I felt that Marcus’s story is underdeveloped. As the camera focusses on Jean, Sara and François, Marcus drifts out of the picture, mainly becoming visible when Nelly’s credit card starts showing some unexpected payments. Marcus has a legitimate reason to feel rejected and ignored, and is seen at the railway station, presumably hoping for a train out of there. And yet he always remains a peripheral character, even though he’s probably the most interesting of the lot.This being a Claire Denis film, the soundtrack is by Tindersticks, a band who I find are less good at writing memorable songs than when they wrote the score to Denis’s Nenette et Bobi and Trouble Every Day over 20 years ago. In this period, though, they have also improved in the art of general soundtrack writing – the sinister, string-based music remains understated and subtly underscores the mood changes taking place within the film.Does Mit Liebe and Enschlossenheit actually mean anything, and does it really matter if it doesn’t? I would tend to answer a soft “No” to both questions. It is a – quite compelling – story about 3 ageing Parisians. Some subjects like colonialism and misogyny appear and are dealt with, but I think it would be a little too grandiose to claim that this is what the film is actually about. It is a fiction, a narrative, and it doesn’t really have to be any more than that.So watch it, enjoy it, but don’t expect it to tell you anything deep about the human condition, because – to be honest – this shouldn’t be the main reason why you go to the cinema. Just sit back and enjoy.
CinePhil 