After the film about the trapped soldiers comes the film about the collection of women trapped in marital situations, love affairs and general relationships with other men; two pieces depicting routine scenarios wherein one cannot merely 'up' and walk away in spite of the simplicity of the set up. The troops in director Denis Tanovic's "No Man's Land" were of course bound by a terrifying situation involving an anti-personnel mine and their inability to merely leave it alone whilst existing perched on the frontline of a war anyway - the women in his 2005 French language drama "Hell" is a detailing of a less than terrifying proposition on paper, although one that is just as equally engrossing, as a group of people this time move freely about their surroundings whilst dealing with an array of altercations born out of time spent with the male gender.
The film follows three sisters and their tremulous paths in life born out of the presence of men. One sister of whom appears frightened of instigating a relationship; one of whom is stuck in one that is falling apart and the other of whom desires greatly to start one with somebody who's not necessarily interested. The women, respectively, are Céline (Viard); Sophie (Béart) and Anne (Gillian), three siblings occupying a Paris playing host to love-'n'-all-that, only not in the way someone unfamiliar to the city nor film making as a whole would portray such a thing in such a place. There is romance in the film, but nothing necessarily romantic about the piece, nor what people go through as a congealed whole – there are affairs and there is love, but it is tremulous and often unpleasant for those sharing in it.
Céline is a nice, polite young woman; a woman whose trauma during infanthood saw both her and her mother encounter their father/husband at his workplace at precisely the wrong time when entering into his office to catch him in the presence of a naked male infant. You might say the event has appeared to have gone on and moulded where Céline stands in terms of the opposite gender - a patient, albeit often scatty woman, she spends time with her wheelchair bound mother reciting some of the more morbid world records contained within a particular book sponsored by a particular alcoholic beverage. Céline has an admirer, a man from the past who's apparent in her life out of one, big misunderstanding from the offset. Céline is wary, since the events surrounding how she knows him are traumatic enough to leave an imprint without necessarily being enough to send her totally mad. Sexuality and sexual connotations are embroiled in the connection - when she removes her clothes for him on account of entrusting him to be reading from the same page as she is in terms of mutual attraction, history repeats itself in the most unfortunate, although rather blackly amusing, way possible. In spite of what precedes it, the gentleman is decent: someone whose sensitivity is apparent out of the fact the film establishes him to enjoy poetry and of whom seems to walk around with an analogue watch which can 'beep'.
Emmanuelle Béart's character wakes up in the morning, but not beside her husband – he's already up and too busy out in the hallway taking on the phone to another young woman, someone whose picture dons the walls of his photographic studio where he works. Desire and sexuality have often followed Béart around in the roles that she's previously undertaken, with the likes of Manon des Sources; Histoire de Marie et Julien and Nathalie... coming to mind as films depicting the actress central to relationships that range from unrequited to just plain odd and very much feature another man. Here, we have fun watching her as someone who's obviously become somewhat unappealing to a man. Where Sophie is the victim in one strand driven by an extra marital affair, Anne is busy instigating one of her own with an older man – a lecturing professor whose car of choice is an old DS19 in a story about befriending an elder suitor that runs parallel with her younger sister Célines' courting of a younger man.
If the film strikes us, then it's down to its maturity in dealing with what it depicts. The film is about women and about women and their interactions with the gentlemen they encounter that carry romantic intentions, but there is no desire to depict neither them nor the events in their life as off the wall or 'wacky'. There is an innocence to proceedings, something undercut by what is probably the most interesting of the three tales in Béart's strand – a story depicting fall out; suspicion and great anger. These are women we sense might actually exist and women whose actions have the sorts of consequences which impact upon them enough for us to sense they feel it – a lesser film may have had them pick themselves up; dust themselves down and move onto the next unrealistic, socially clumsily romantic set piece for our meager amusement. Tanovic weaves in a narrative about family feuding; memory and repent with Céline's chapter, something which actually works as a decent bookender enabling these stories to congregate together where previously there was distrust and alienation. If his aforementioned 2001 effort No Man's Land wove into the central content this exasperated story of these French U.N. soldiers plodding their way to the soldiers in need of assistance, then this burning background narrative involving a misplaced child and the core character's father from decades ago fills in for the blue helmeted squad of international support chugging across the barren landscape of war torn Yugoslavia. Whatever you take away from it, and there is content here to get excited about, the film as a congealed piece is strong and creditable.
The film follows three sisters and their tremulous paths in life born out of the presence of men. One sister of whom appears frightened of instigating a relationship; one of whom is stuck in one that is falling apart and the other of whom desires greatly to start one with somebody who's not necessarily interested. The women, respectively, are Céline (Viard); Sophie (Béart) and Anne (Gillian), three siblings occupying a Paris playing host to love-'n'-all-that, only not in the way someone unfamiliar to the city nor film making as a whole would portray such a thing in such a place. There is romance in the film, but nothing necessarily romantic about the piece, nor what people go through as a congealed whole – there are affairs and there is love, but it is tremulous and often unpleasant for those sharing in it.
Céline is a nice, polite young woman; a woman whose trauma during infanthood saw both her and her mother encounter their father/husband at his workplace at precisely the wrong time when entering into his office to catch him in the presence of a naked male infant. You might say the event has appeared to have gone on and moulded where Céline stands in terms of the opposite gender - a patient, albeit often scatty woman, she spends time with her wheelchair bound mother reciting some of the more morbid world records contained within a particular book sponsored by a particular alcoholic beverage. Céline has an admirer, a man from the past who's apparent in her life out of one, big misunderstanding from the offset. Céline is wary, since the events surrounding how she knows him are traumatic enough to leave an imprint without necessarily being enough to send her totally mad. Sexuality and sexual connotations are embroiled in the connection - when she removes her clothes for him on account of entrusting him to be reading from the same page as she is in terms of mutual attraction, history repeats itself in the most unfortunate, although rather blackly amusing, way possible. In spite of what precedes it, the gentleman is decent: someone whose sensitivity is apparent out of the fact the film establishes him to enjoy poetry and of whom seems to walk around with an analogue watch which can 'beep'.
Emmanuelle Béart's character wakes up in the morning, but not beside her husband – he's already up and too busy out in the hallway taking on the phone to another young woman, someone whose picture dons the walls of his photographic studio where he works. Desire and sexuality have often followed Béart around in the roles that she's previously undertaken, with the likes of Manon des Sources; Histoire de Marie et Julien and Nathalie... coming to mind as films depicting the actress central to relationships that range from unrequited to just plain odd and very much feature another man. Here, we have fun watching her as someone who's obviously become somewhat unappealing to a man. Where Sophie is the victim in one strand driven by an extra marital affair, Anne is busy instigating one of her own with an older man – a lecturing professor whose car of choice is an old DS19 in a story about befriending an elder suitor that runs parallel with her younger sister Célines' courting of a younger man.
If the film strikes us, then it's down to its maturity in dealing with what it depicts. The film is about women and about women and their interactions with the gentlemen they encounter that carry romantic intentions, but there is no desire to depict neither them nor the events in their life as off the wall or 'wacky'. There is an innocence to proceedings, something undercut by what is probably the most interesting of the three tales in Béart's strand – a story depicting fall out; suspicion and great anger. These are women we sense might actually exist and women whose actions have the sorts of consequences which impact upon them enough for us to sense they feel it – a lesser film may have had them pick themselves up; dust themselves down and move onto the next unrealistic, socially clumsily romantic set piece for our meager amusement. Tanovic weaves in a narrative about family feuding; memory and repent with Céline's chapter, something which actually works as a decent bookender enabling these stories to congregate together where previously there was distrust and alienation. If his aforementioned 2001 effort No Man's Land wove into the central content this exasperated story of these French U.N. soldiers plodding their way to the soldiers in need of assistance, then this burning background narrative involving a misplaced child and the core character's father from decades ago fills in for the blue helmeted squad of international support chugging across the barren landscape of war torn Yugoslavia. Whatever you take away from it, and there is content here to get excited about, the film as a congealed piece is strong and creditable.