Emmanuel Mouret

[Red Screamer]

France. I saw it a while back but forgot to post about it.

[therewillbeblus]

France. I saw it a while back but forgot to post about it.

I was gonna say, 'should I move to Iowa?'

[therewillbeblus]

Chronique d'une liaison passagère

Macaigne and Kiberlain are both good and have the chemistry to create a relationship that’s interesting enough to sustain this chamber treatment. But this is really Macaigne’s film—his performance and Mouret’s staging do great things with body language—and the story is colored by his character’s perspective. That’s where I start to wonder if the film is too limited. Distance from both leads could have led to more fun with the episodic narrative and what the audience does and doesn’t know; Balancing the perspectives of both leads could have built a more in-depth portrait of the relationship and formed a different kind of progression or alternation among the film’s restricted elements. I was glad when Mouret threw us a minor curveball in the last third, which has a more-than-minor impact because of the way it moves the boundaries of the film that we’ve grown accustomed to.

I share your impressions of the film's general tone, restrictions, and place within Mouret's canon, but am pretty surprised to hear a declaration that the perspective is unbalanced towards one of the leads and not the other, especially if Macaigne is the answer! It is definitely limited, but that's because it's colored by neither perspective, just objective wide shots documenting the moments when they're together with impartially measured points of view, which is simultaneously composed of behavioral patterns signifying awkward withholding/alienating unknowability and the youthful bliss/sublime relief of the affair's function. They each dance around their feelings throughout, but I actually felt Kiberlain was the more interesting and complex character, while Macaigne is playing a watered-down version of many sensitive-neurotic Woody Allen/Mouret/Macaigne parts from past films. Her body language and minute gestures -including every slight movement made as she softly risks vulnerability and then retreats into guardedness when visiting his workplace, or when he brings up the coworker's unsolicited input to get a reaction- says so much without overstating anything. Meanwhile, his reactions are almost comically simplistic without any indication they are deeper than how they appear (i.e. he's uncomfortable that she showed up at his workplace because it invades a rigid boundary and he's an anxious person... okay, yep; or how he initiated that conversation about the coworker's advice and potential love brewing because he is both anxious- again- and maybe in love but too blind to know it and really just talking anxiously unfiltered, while her understated disposition indicates that she is shielding that she is torn over the idea of allowing herself to feel these feelings or to grapple with the possibility that she doesn't). The structure is limited by design but it's also fitting because we get these brief chapters that abruptly cut to the next without catharsis in the scenes, elusively passing by just like a memory or superfluous detail we may recall from a relationship or experiential fleeting elements of temporal staticity in a moment where we are truly present.

Even when they are apart, Mouret ensures that he grants them equity to their own individual reactions: they each encroach on the other's private environments once, and after the 'experiment', when Macaigne pauses in the hallway sensing something is happening, we also get a glimpse inside Kiberlain's apartment without Macaigne- only his face says nothing and her's implodes with unease, which is far more emotive and perplexing. And yet, three weeks later, Macaigne's naivete implies that he didn't actually do any processing with what made him stop on the staircase, while she did. I'm sorry- if anything, it's her perspective that's celebrated here, but both are so enigmatic precisely because they remain protective during their perceived liberated intimacy. It seems as if Mouret is getting more and more distance from characters representing himself as he churns out films, and that may be the quality I admired most about this one. Macaigne is resigned to a position no more pronounced or validated than Kiberlain's, even slightly. He gets called out for all of his subconscious attempts to engage in public self-pity or inhibited advocacy or humblebragging or groveling, framed from a removed position. I could buy a reading where this is all from Kiberlain's perspective -the person who instigated the affair (if Mouret wasn't interested in equity here, why not start with him approaching her at the aforementioned party to identify him as the surrogate subject? The film begins with her in the driver's seat) because she found these soft qualities of Macaigne attractive, and then we as an audience watch them fade in interest or merit right with her own retraction. It's quite sad, and a kind of brilliant critique Mouret is (intentionally or otherwise) making about himself or the male characters he creates.

I suppose it could be from Macaigne's perspective as he absorbs her presence livening up his banal existence, since everything that is compelling and novel comes from her and challenges him: We only hear her explore a fascinating concept of "nature" as he just twiddles his thumbs; she calls him out on his stupid story of a botched threesome and nakedly attacks his character for never taking chances without being aware of his own cowardice and ignorance. But if that's all from his perspective, it would entail his character being someone who made something of these things, rather than operate exactly as she calls it- as an avoidant, non-participant doomed to defensively slip back into delusion to play it safe and never really face or fight for what he's feeling (and I don't buy that the ending works as a reversal of this, only a half-hearted expression rooted in impulsivity that deflates back into an anxious-avoidant face-saving smooth-over disguised as self-actualization). Yeah, it doesn't add up. It's either a subtly self-reflexive evisceration of Mouret's characters from Kiberlain's perspective or just an objective portrait that's basically doing the exact same thing, just less creatively.

Spoiler

I did like how the final scene was filmed in shot-reverse-shot in contrast to the two shots making up the entire film before it- not only is it a clever implementation of form-inducing-theme exhibiting their disconnect, but it's a rare occasion where as a viewer I was conditioned to feel that shot-reverse-shot conversations look weird!

This one feels most indebted to Annie Hall, only without all the inventive bits that involve an eclectic cast of characters, places, and surreal satire that aided that film's charms. I still liked this a lot -even subpar Mouret is strong these days, but I too hope he returns to more intricate narrative and ensemble work next

[Red Screamer]

Good observations, you make a convincing argument. Though, to clarify, I didn’t mean the film was uncritical of Macaigne, more that its narrative beats and pivots from comedy to drama tend to shift with his character’s point of view.

Spoiler

Like with the threesome and the break-up. For example, when he goes to visit her after they break up, IIRC, we don’t see exactly what the cause and effect of her new life is for her, and we enter and leave the scene with him instead of the other way around. I could be misremembering though.

I actually just picked up the French blu of this (which has the zombie short, which is cute but not super substantial, plus a long interview with Mouret and the cinematographer—but unfortunately no English subs) and was hoping to rewatch soon. So thanks for giving me a few good things to think about when I do!

[therewillbeblus]

Good observations, you make a convincing argument. Though, to clarify, I didn’t mean the film was uncritical of Macaigne, more that its narrative beats and pivots from comedy to drama tend to shift with his character’s point of view.

Yeah I didn't interpret you to be saying that the film was uncritical of him, but my stream of consciousness writing just took me in a direction where following his point of view wouldn't gel with what we get, not only due to the formal equity but because the character doesn't engage in self-criticism that's empathized with any more thoroughly than Kiberlain's perspective. Mouret seems to be either critiquing the behavior of self-deprecation, or sympathetically documenting how spineless disengagement keeps one in a vulnerable and delusional space where they cannot bring themselves to reach out and access intimacy that might shed more light on each character.

Spoiler

I do think there's a decent argument there for this leaning a bit into Macaigne, but only because Kiberlain's more complex and expressive character is kept at bay due to his fearful inertia. Then again, she's playing an equal part here, so I'm not sure I would buy that reading, which would enforce a power differential in his favor. Nothing we're offered here indicates that there's a gendered imbalance or positioning that's any more complicated than her being the dominant one... except that he has his own 'person' outside of her, which is an interesting element to reflect upon, especially since he's the submissive role in every other respect, and this likely prompts her own life changes/pulling away.. Hmmm lots to think about!

Spoiler

Like with the threesome and the break-up. For example, when he goes to visit her after they break up, IIRC, we don’t see exactly what the cause and effect of her new life is for her, and we enter and leave the scene with him instead of the other way around. I could be misremembering though.

Spoiler

He does arrive first at the house, but I just took that as a shot to establish where we were and what was happening. The same thing might happen for either of them as they were waiting around in public for the other, or entering one another's places for the first times. When he leaves the house, the two women walk him out, he gets in his car and drives away, and then the camera lingers on Kiberlain's conflicted face for a long pause as her new partner goes back inside. So it seems like more formal equity - Mouret bookending the scene with contrasted images in the same context: First, Macaigne anxiously approaching a space as an isolated agent, and finishing with Kiberlain anxiously standing alone outside of the same space.

If we want to get analytical here, they are both outdoors, removed from the home that represents containment, safety, trust, communication, unable to breach the self-constructed barriers to be with one another. This makes me think about the whole returning theme of Kiberlain's broad definition of "nature" being inclusive of all man-created things: so they're physically outside in Macaigne's myopic idea of "nature" when the house can also be natural, just like them being in love would be natural. But neither will allow themselves to see this, so Kiberlain violates her own theoretical beliefs with emotional handicaps, remaining stuck in Macaigne's "nature" - not risking vulnerability to attain the infinite possibilities of love and harmony that exist in other spaces, whether the space of abstract love or being liberated into sharing physical space more fluidly together. The whole film is basically them putting in a lot of effort to finding physical spaces to fit their affection into, which -when they are able to comfortably, like in her apartment, leads to sublime flashes of affinity. And yet, if they each looked past their respective defenses, into their hearts and courageously acknowledged that their love is emblematic of Kiberlain's "nature", they may not need to try so hard. As the saying goes, "Freedom from, freedom to"

[Red Screamer]

Mouret reports in the latest issue of Cahiers that he has a new feature shooting this fall in Clermont-Ferrand (like My Night at Maud's, he notes). Called An Honest Woman, it follows the love lives of three different women, "alternating between light and serious sequences." Co-written with young filmmaker Carmen Leroi.

[domino harvey]

Mouret has made a zombie (!) themed short film reuniting him with Frederique Bel!

This was a one-note comic idea that unfolds about as you'd expect, but I am not unsusceptible to the pleasures of watching Frederique Bel ramble on in full neurotic mode while a zombie repeatedly almost eats her (even if her plastic surgeon went a bit Real Housewives on her...)

[domino harvey]

Mouret reports in the latest issue of Cahiers that he has a new feature shooting this fall in Clermont-Ferrand (like My Night at Maud's, he notes). Called An Honest Woman, it follows the love lives of three different women, "alternating between light and serious sequences." Co-written with young filmmaker Carmen Leroi.

This is now called Une chose et son contraire and will be released in November in France

[soundchaser]

Interested to see how he balances the separate tones between sequences. I still need to get around to watching his last feature to see if his successful stabs at drama continued.

[Mr Sausage]

Caprice

I’m on an Anais Demoustier kick and watched Anais in Love, Alice and the Mayor, and Caprice. I very much enjoyed all three, but Caprice was handily the deepest and best. It was also, despite being outwardly more light and frivolous, and with none of the dramatics, the most serious of the three. I saw it as an attempt to play the Notting Hill type rom com against the manic pixie dream girl situation, with the bewildered lead trying to excavate a real, adult relationship from the pile up of rom com contrivances and fantasies.

The opening scene sets up its dueling scenarios, with Demoustier's manic pixie dream girl competing with Efira's pedestal-top dream girl by intruding on it. Demoustier comes at Mouret with a classic contrivance, that this is the third accidental meeting (the other two crucially unseen by us), three of course being a significant number for humans for some reason. But Mouret is unmoved by it, and soon enough lost in his fantasy of Efira as he weeps at her performance. Demoustier gives it one more try with the glasses--but they're not his, he doesn't know what to say to these intrusions, and Demoustier leaves. Indeed, she's gone from the film for the next thirty minutes, which I initially thought was odd (I came for her after all) but subsequently understood that Mouret's character had made a choice (he is not as passive as he might seem) and we would not be following the manic pixie story for now.

So we follow the Notting Hill fantasy, with its unlikely meet-cute, whirlwind courtship, and invocation of destiny, fortune, and other forms of magical thinking that sanctify the coupling. Here's the interesting thing, tho': the whole romantic dream/fantasy thing that's the raison d'etre of this kind of movie, where the pair fall in love, go on various romantic outings and charm each other, and negotiate the unequal pairing part of the thing, is elided actually. After Efira and Mouret's first kiss, we cut to a montage of domestic bliss instead of puppy love antics. The whole adolescent fantasy part of it is elided for a mature, satisfying relationship. Mouret's "dream girl" becomes a satisfying partner, and the story concludes.

With the Notting Hill contrivance having petered out, Demoustier intrudes again through a second coincidence, and manages to use Mouret's social awkwardness and difficulty saying no to maneuver him into an encounter. Now we have a classic contrivance, the attempt to keep the wife from knowing the affair, of course with a complication in the form of a pesky housekeeper with improbably bad timing. Except this plot, too, will fizzle, and again due to mature character choices. When Mouret tries to hush the maid, we think this'll form a larger comic scenario where he tries to prevent her from telling, but she maintains a disgusted silence. Then, when she quits, we assume this'll be his out so the adultery scenario can continue, but again no. When Mouret discovers the maid has quit, may have done so because of him, and might be risking her family, he takes responsibility immediately rather than be the cause of the housekeeper's unhappiness. It later turns out the housekeeper had quit because she really did find another job closer to home, but this is not a twist of the knife because Mouret clearly does not regret his decision to talk. That is, this is a series of mature and compassionate decisions that stifle contrivance. Throughout this portion, Demoustier intrudes, but withdraws her intrusions when she discovers who Mouret's partner is, and instead tries to mend what she'd helped sever. This part of the film ends in reconciliation.

The next part renews the contrivances: Efira unexpectedly needs to leave town, naturally, and Mouret breaks his leg, so Demoustier has her opening to re-run the manic pixie dream girl plot, seeing as she now has the opportunity to be of improbable help to the man of her affections. She goes through the motions of being nothing in herself while being indispensable to Mouret, and yet the romance never quite takes off because Mouret, while enjoying it and being attracted to it, can't relinquish his memory of domestic bliss with Efira that the film had earlier sundered. Having already excavated one contrivance for a satisfying adult relationship, he's resistant to starting over, mining a second dream for what would be a rather vague relationship. The Notting Hill dream at least points to something beyond itself. The manic pixie dream only exists in the here-and-now of its energy, when a man is low and needs to be raised. Mouret confronts Demoustrier over her infatuation, only to hear he had, apparently, told her he loved her. This is one of the more mysterious aspects of the movie. Was it a dream? Is she lying? Did he voice a submerged desire while half asleep? Whatever the reality, the declaration makes Mouret responsible for Demoustier's actions, at least on some level, and therefore unable entirely to divest himself of her.

The manic pixie contrivance comes to a head with the ultimate cry-for-help-as-bonding-moment, the suicide attempt, which interrupts a moment of reconciliation with Efira, now returned (and now very much not a dream girl, but a woman with her own careful decisions to make). Mouret leaves quickly to rejoin the manic pixie plot, except rather than the suicide attempt fueling a heightened renewal of the dream, with a declaration of fidelity followed by a returning of the care and concern earlier bestowed, care and concern for Demoustier as an actual person takes precedence. Mouret takes the doctor's good advice not to see her, as Mouret's presence obviously has done her no good, and to leave her in the care of her friend/boyfriend, and return to Efira.

This acceptance of responsibility, where someone makes a careful decision based on the needs of someone else, ends this theme of dueling rom com plots (with the manic pixie again exiting the film suddenly). Indeed, ends it so thoroughly that not only is there a sudden prolepsis to Mouret again in a satisfying adult relationship, but another possible contrivance that had been growing underneath the other two, the partner swap four's company thing, is quashed before it had got going, and we're left with an ending free of rom com contrivances, dream women, fantasies of eternal love and fidelity and bliss and whatever, in favour of mature decisions, compromises, and a hard earned contentment.

This movie's great. And it feels like such a lark, too, despite all this deeper stuff going on.

[domino harvey]

Subs for Mouret's short collaboration with Carmen Leroi, La réputation, are up on back channels

[therewillbeblus]

La réputation feels like an idea's inception, not a fleshed-out final product, not to mention one that Mouret (and many others) have played with before. Double its length and we might've had something

[therewillbeblus]

Mouret reports in the latest issue of Cahiers that he has a new feature shooting this fall in Clermont-Ferrand (like My Night at Maud's, he notes). Called An Honest Woman, it follows the love lives of three different women, "alternating between light and serious sequences." Co-written with young filmmaker Carmen Leroi.

This is now called Une chose et son contraire and will be released in November in France

Apparently it's now titled Trois amies and just showed up on back channels

[therewillbeblus]

I had a difficult time making it all the way through Trois amies, which could be Mouret's worst film to date. It feels exhaustively trite, reusing the same ideas and themes but taking the least interesting or creative paths in every instance. A real bummer

[Rupert Pupkin]

Well, now it's like the tragical unavoidable "Match Point" (which was IMHO in masterpiece) in Woody Allen's "recent" output. No humor anymore. I regret "Laissons Lucie Faire" (Lucifer) an improbable Fernandel-secret agent, and the plot is close finally to "Un baiser s'il vous plaît" which had so funny scenes, these particular way to discuss, and Emmanuel Mouret was one of the funniest actors I have seen on screen lately. Somehow, how they try to get sort of these deadlines and things to make everybody happy in the end is close to this new movie. And Virginie Ledoyen was so sexy. One of his best movie IMHO. I think about "Match Point" because of the tragic plot but also the ability Emmanuel Mouret had to boost the sexy of an actress on screen (and not with the usual/easy way) : like Virginie Ledoyen. (That said, she doesn't need help, but E.Mouret had that sense).
I miss Emmanuel Mouret as an actor.
It was nice to see Sara Forestier here after all she has been through (another actress (yes another one) who - unfortunately - wasn't protected during the shooting.
I like a lot Vincent Macaigne (he was amazing in "Médecin de nuit) is always a pleasure to see him on screen - he is funny, and there is a lot of tenderness in his character and acting in this movie.
It was fun (in a way) to see two actors from Quentin Dupieux's "Mandibules" playing a "serious role" (last time I see the main character of this movie, she got a "coup de boule" in the head by Virginie Efira (a want-to-be Ken Loach movie).
There are two many back and forth in the "love stories" in this movie and it tends to be boring.
As far as I can tell, this is the first Emmanuel Mouret's movie who "deals" with death.
But I regret that since "Les choses qu'on dit..." how Emmnanuel Mouret's movies have completely lost these surreal dialogues which were not exactly Rohmerian and a trademark of E.Mouret's style; I think that he (deliberately ?) lost it. And it's too bad; Then again a movie like "Un baiser s'il vous plaît" was the perfect balance : funny, a little dramatic, smart and clever movie, and almost an happy ending.
I miss his burlesque style too.

And by the way, I'm so happy (sorry for the aparté) for Hafsia Herzi and the César she got for "meilleure actrice"; she was great in "Borgo" (another great movie about Corse was "À Son Image"; an almost Antonionesque portrait of a woman; with a complete scene with Les Béruriers noirs song in its entirety (Salut à toi) - but Hafsia also did the same year two movies with Isabelle Huppert; and there is a chemistry between these two actress; la "La Prisonnière de Bordeaux" was another great movie. The confrontation between Huppert and Herzi in the scene of "La Prisonnière de Bordeaux" was amazing.

[therewillbeblus]

But I regret that since "Les choses qu'on dit..." how Emmnanuel Mouret's movies have completely lost these surreal dialogues which were not exactly Rohmerian and a trademark of E.Mouret's style

Interesting observation - yes, this feels exactly like his other movies but without that 'thing' that makes them inspired. It was no longer than usual in actuality, but felt like eight hours

[Rupert Pupkin]

"Les choses qu'on dit..." still has the Emmanuel Mouret "surreal" dialogue; not this movie.
And the narrator voice + "the let me tell you a story" and you - have a whole sequence in the movie was already used in this movie, and at first in "Un baiser s'il vous plaît". The Emmanuel Mouret's touch was his own character as an actor; a "physical appearance" which could remind Fernandel in a much more attractive way but still, clumsy, with some slap-stick gags a-la Pierre Etaix.
The internet-dating-escort in "Un baiser..." was really funny. And there was these Rohmerian-dialogue, but not exactly like in Rohmer. All this combinaison was unique and even if the French reviews put down E.Mouret, writing that he was too ambitious : the use of paintings, classical musique- at that time it seems that they didn't realize that he had his own style and was not trying to do some "Match Point". But it sounds to me like movie after movie he progressively left all what made its own style and for instance I just remember this fresh-lightness movie "Vénus et Fleur" (it ends with a "morale" a-la Morale Tales by Rohmer but still this was a unique movie).
Who could tell now that it was an E.Mouret movie ?

[domino harvey]

Two more Mouret shorts, Le consentement and an untitled and unfinished short from when he was in film school, now have subs on back channels. I think this completes his ouevre?

[therewillbeblus]

I wonder which leftover flick listed on his LB page is the untitled film, if any. Looks like there are a couple more?

[therewillbeblus]

I wonder which leftover flick listed on his LB page is the untitled film, if any. Looks like there are a couple more?

And indeed, another one of those remaining shorts has just been subbed (Caresse)

[domino harvey]

For any Chicago folks, Les choses qu’on dit, les choses qu’on fait is screening for free on July 9 at the Chicago History Museum

[diamonds]

Translated 2022 Cahiers article by Mouret discussing Diary of a Fleeting Affair in terms of his influences.

[Calvin]

The CNC have funded restorations/remasters for Caresse, Promène-toi donc tout nu!, Vénus et Fleur, Changement d'adresse, Un baiser s'il vous plaît, and Fais-moi plaisir!

Aka everything from 1998 to 2009 except for Laissons Lucie faire!