I just saw this film again, I believe for the sixth time. I will doubtless see it many more times. This is one of the most brilliant French films ever made. Although the film is mysterious, even more mysterious is what happened to the writer and director, Gilles Mimouni. For ten years he has not made another film, and this was his only one. The story and execution of this ingenious film are perfect, and it is clearly paying homage continually to both Hitchcock and Buster Keaton. The split-second timing of the movements is just as carefully controlled as the scene where the side of a house falls on Keaton in 'Steamboat Bill Junior', and he is only not killed by inches. In this film, people stoop and turn and pass one another unawares, and if they had been one second off, they would have collided. The storyline thus walks a tightrope of chance events to such an intense degree that you cannot take your eyes off the screen for even a millisecond, or you will miss something crucial. The haunting, albeit intentionally repetitive, music by Peter Chase is reminiscent of Hitchcock's 'Vertigo', and the whole film has the same eerie quality, but whereas Hitchcock had one woman be two women, Mimouni has two women be one woman, thereby inverting the plot structure. There are passing references to other Hitchcock films, but it is 'Vertigo' which is central to the inspiration of this film. The theme may seem superficially to be obsessive love, but the film is really about the magic of everyday chance events, the invisible threads behind the tapestry, the ineffable. Everything is hyper-charged with passionate love and desire, but the desire transcends its object and struggles towards something behind and beyond the object. That is why it is so easily transferable from Lisa to Alice, when it is realised that it is Alice who is more mysterious than Lisa, and it is Alice who truly embodies the Eternal Mystery. The film is ultimately 'made' by Romane Bohringer. She is so fascinating that she outshines Monica Bellucci, which is really something to pull off, considering that Bellucci is a knockout beauty, whereas Bohringer is what the English call 'plain'. However, Romane Bohringer had even at this early date more than mastered the art of 'personality dominance', whereby beautiful girls fall by the wayside and don't get noticed because Romane is being so fascinating you can't take your eyes off her long enough even to look at the beautiful girls, and you end up only thinking of her. Most of us remember, I'm sure, her father Richard Bohringer lying in a bathtub listening to opera in the film 'Diva' many years ago. I would rather watch Romane than Richard lying in a bathtub, but there seems to be some genetic secret to being fascinating, because Richard Bohringer is spellbinding too, and he isn't even a woman. Romane looks as if she may turn into Anna Magnani when she is much older, and that means she will get an Oscar, if someone can only write another 'Rose Tattoo' for her. The girl has so much passion inside her, she could set the Seine on fire. Wouldn't it be wonderful if she and Julie Delpy teamed up? This film made wonderful use of Paris locations. But where is this 'square in the Luxembourg'? It looked like Place Furstenburg to me. Maybe I missed something. I must watch the film another six times, just to study the precision of the timing and who brushes past whom, and make sure I've got it right. The whole thing is like ten gigantic simultaneous chess games played blindfolded by a grandmaster. How thrilling it all is! Romane, you can look through my window anytime! Mimouni, come on over, let's discuss impossibilities, unlikelihoods, coincidence, synchronicity, everything that is going on that is invisible and how it effects the visible. And once again, we have here the spirit of Breton's novel 'Nadja' embodied in a great French work of art. More! More! More!
Review of The Apartment
