I watched this surreal french film by Francois Ozon. (Ironically) it left me gasping for breath.
(What is it about French movies and full frontals?!)
Valeria Bruni Tadeschi and Stephane Freiss set the mood as a middle aged couple very civilly parting ways-- signing the divorce papers after agreeing on the terms read out by a stodgy lawyer.
The (as yet) unvoiced bitterness and the anger forms a silent undercurrent.
The film moves chronologically backwards from this point to capture for us four other instances which are the "big moments" in this couple's life.
We see a patient Gilles as he handles their child and we see another darker side of him in a dinner converastion with his gay brother and his lover. Marion glitters through this scene as she entertains them after a long hard day at work.
We move backward through the agony of Marion alone in a traumatic childbirth, silently chastising the unrelenting Gilles as he passes zombie-like through the motions of a regular day.
We see Gilles and Marion united in holy matrimony as they mouth the (we already knowthis to be untrue) words-- until death do us part.
We see Gilles distracted by Marion's appearance as he cavorts on a beach with his girl friend.
The film forces us to consider these moments in reverse chronology and makes us wonder if things could have been different.
The pace remains slow and ponderous. The nudity seems excessive. All in all, it leaves one wondering why this story needed to be told this way. However, it also leaves us feeling like we have been throught the bitter parting of ways ourselves. And it feels like a series of snapshots in an everyday life...
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