I’ve Loved You So Long

Posted on: 3rd October 2008  |

Director: Philippe ClaudelStarring: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Gr?vill, Fr?d?ricPierrotUK Release date: 26 September 2008Certificate: 12 (115 mins)

“What the flying fruit-cakes is the point of a French film that doesn’t have Juliette Binoche in it?”

Thus I thought, but did not speak, as my film friend (who isn’t accustomed to taking “no” for an answer) had already decided. But really, I ask you, surely the whole purpose of having a French film industry at all is to put before our eyes the most beautiful French person on the planet as often as is reasonably possible. Isn’t it?!

Well, apparently, not so. Someone in the corridors of French power - obviously at not less than ministerial level - took the hugely courageous decision not merely to allow an Englishwoman to mangle their language, but even to supplant their idol and to do it all on their own celluloid. Would we allow Sarkozy to open our Parliament, or appear on our stamps? Not likely, mon cher! But here in the first shot is Kristin Scott-Thomas (Juliette) puffing away on a Gauloise and bearing the bitter frown and exquisite Mona Lisa smile of a woman of a certain age who has lived too much too young. And from that moment on, this film is as French as a 2CV running through the waving corn in the Auvergne towards the rural chaos of a country cheese market.

Like all good French films it is principally about family, food and drink, pretty much in that order. As is usual for the genre, a family is reunited by unsought circumstances after long and painful separation and must deal with the consequences of a deep and dreadful family secret, which the film gradually reveals in little bits over the course of nearly two hours. To extend it to that length usually requires a great deal of furious rows, followed by the furious smoking of Gauloises, followed by furious reconciliations, followed by long shots of Juliette Binoche doing nothing in particular in an incredibly beautiful way (which is why one rarely hears any French men complaining about items 1 - 3). And gradually a kind of denoument is arrived at, with some partial resolution of the issues (though not too much – this is, after all, the land of Sartre and Foucault) primarily through the medium of wine, cheese and Racine. This one fulfils its genre to the hilt - but this time, it really works!

Juliette is a sinner who is loved, accepted but not entirely understood by her sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) – a French provincial academic, wife of a researcher and adoptive mother of two Vietnamese girls. Juliette’s sin is huge, all-encompassing, all-absorbing and its slow, gradual revelation is the story of the entire film. Its consequences in Juliette’s own life are beautifully acted as she finds herself re-parented by her little sister, whose love she tests nearly but not quite to destruction with her alienating, destructive and childish behaviour. And so, being loved, perhaps one can begin to love also?

If not well acted, that could so easily cloy. But the central pairing of the sisters orbiting like a binary star around one-another and their single dark centre of gravity is never less than wholly credible. One thing that Scott-Thomas catches beautifully is the strange combination of utter selfishness, self-absorption and self-loathing typical of the long-sentence ex-con. After that long inside (in every sense), what else other than yourself is there to be absorbed with? And only a close encounter with another person’s love and another person’s despair can break her free of the prison of her own selfishness.

Elsa Zylberstein does that hardest acting job of all – playing the good person with credibility – the one who continues to believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that the love we have wasted the God of Love will renew. Around the two central characters are solid cameo performances whose significance grows within the film. I will long remember the look on the face of Capitaine Fauré (Frédéric Pierrot) as he gradually realises that his last remaining hope of happiness and fulfilment has been taken from him. And finally, one other thing of beauty not to be missed is the best guitar-led sound track I have heard since Mark Knopfler did Local Hero.

Amid such beauty, why seek the negative? Sure there are plot-holes, but the people who search for such things deserve to find them. I’m sure they are also the people who don’t think the Mona Lisa is smiling at all and that Camembert should be solid all the way through. It is the task of the believer to find God and all good things in the world; not to complain that someone has moved his cheese.

And so, at the end, it is no spoiler to say that Juliette smiles and the world is a better, more beautiful, more loving place. And as the credits rolled, I turned to my film friend and “Wow! What did you think of that?”

And answer came there none, except a silence as eloquent as the smile on the face of Kristin Scott-Thomas.

Paul O'Reilly SJ Visit this film's official web site 

 

 

 

 

I've Loved You So Long Trailer - Available to order on DVD now!

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