Mortality and the Widow of St. Pierre

by David Anderson

One of the endlessly satisfying abilities of French filmmakers is that they consistently deliver visual pleasure without giving away too much too soon. Unlike American movies, the average French film paces itself through many courses, allowing the viewer to enjoy its story without overindulging on the violence, sex and sensory stuff that the usual Hollywood film affords.
A case in point is director Patrice Leconte's latest film, The Widow of St Pierre. Set on a barren island off the coast of maritime Canada in 1849, it tells the story of a murder and what comes of it. While mostly casting wide with a number of near misses with his other films, notably Ridicule and last year's Girl on the Bridge, Leconte has finally hit the mark in a film that holds the attention of the viewer without allowing us to overindulge.
The shadow of the guillotine looms large for Neel Auguste, a fisherman who has murdered another islander during a drunken brawl. Abandoned by his partner in crime, Neel faces trial alone. Played with studied devotion by Yugoslavian filmmaker Emir Kusterica in his acting debut, he is condemned and left to patiently ponder his fate while the means of his execution must be sent from another part of the empire.
While languishing in the custody of the island's commanding officer, known only as "the captain" (veteran French actor Daniel Autiel), Neel becomes the subject of the high-minded attentions of the captain's wife, Madame La, played with the usual quiet vivaciousness by Juliette Binoche. The wife's moral repugnance for the death penalty has sparked an interest in the prisoner, who is allowed to accompany her on short trips and walks about the island.
Far from feeling outrage or jealousy, the captain encourages these outtings, his passion for her all the more stirred by her distraction.
The captain must still contend with his official duties, settling disputes among the island's poor fishermen and scattered colonial administrators. His own liberal views on capital punishment also put him at odds with the fervent republicanism of the island's gentry, and he quietly applies pressure for Neel's reprieve. Meanwhile, the guillotine makes its slow, sombre approach on board ship.
Despite their efforts to delay the prisoner's appointment with "the widow,” tragedy is postponed but not averted. Leconte has given us a good, tight film both smolderingly sensual as well as severe on an issue as relevant in contemporary America as in the French colonies. As for Binoche, she offers a delectable performance of substance, allowing audiences to pass on the fluff and save the Chocolate for later.

The Widow of St. Pierre is playing at the Uptown Theater. 612-825-6006.

Near Romance in Retrospect
Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung star in Wong's In the Mood for Love

by David Anderson

Love and romance make for the best stories, filmed or otherwise. Even in a movie featuring a Brad Pitt gapped tooth grin, with a willowy Julie Roberts running from Mexican gangsters, nothing leads to nothing unless the male/female chemistry is right, the sparks ignite and something goes bang.
In the Mood for Love, a new film from director Wong Kar-Wai, might be considered a better sort of love story, or rather a near-love story, where nearness to romance is the sort suggested by sidelong glances politely indulged. Not the average retro period piece, Wong has thankfully worked through a different kind of film altogether.
Wong has earned a reputation well beyond the Asian film industry for his romantic comedies, films that have plumbed the depths of relationships again and again as material for a series of hits in the '90s, notably his Chungking Express and Fallen Angels. An early comedy, Days of Being Wild, featured two young stars, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Maggie Cheung Man-yuk, who would both go on to appear in many of Wong's later films. Here he has cast them opposite one another as two people thrown together quite by circumstance, the result being a far from conventional exercise in the unmentionable, beyond the mannered polite to the merely possible.
The time is 1962, the place, busy Hong Kong. Chow Mo-wan (Leung ) takes time from his busy newspaper office to search for new rooms for himself and his wife. A small apartment is let, where Mr. Chow soon finds himself next door to Su Li-Zhen (Cheung), the dutiful wife of a certain Mr. Chan, a businessman whose work requires him to travel, leaving a presence heard but mostly unseen. Mr. Chow's wife also works long hours as a receptionist, and he must move in and adjust to those in the building while she remains mysteriously away. Furtive telephone calls and half finished greetings remain their only contact.
Frequent comings and goings bring Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan together, as they pass one another through many solitary evenings. He must be content with working late and taking long, shadowy walks home, while she makes herself up for an evening out at the corner noodle bar. By chance, incidental conversation leads to the sudden realization that their spouses are carrying on a secret affair, and the two come together to comfort and cope as best they can.
There are other distractions. Hong Kong is bustling, as the city maintains an uneasy co-existence with Shanghai and the mainland. Political events continue to simmer, serving as occasional, oblique reminders of the fragility of the present. Things heat up on the personal side too , as Leung and Cheung share meals and feelings as they avoid the gossip of nosy neighbors; the two are drawn together, making the best of pretense and awkward circumstance at close quarters.
“In the old days,” Chow tells Mr. Ho, an older, more worldly co-worker, “someone with a secret would take a long walk into the hills, climb a tree, cut a hole in a branch and whisper it into the hole, then cover it up and leave it there forever.” Yet, all that remains of their secrets are the innocent memories of unused beds that they share, rehearsing confrontations with their spouses while working through a martial arts story Chow hopes to publish. They linger moodily on, but their collaboration cannot last.
On the surface, In the Mood for Love is about very little, with slick, stylish imagery suggesting levels of sophistication. Through the teasing of time, Wong plays with the hushed remains of memory that linger like the trail of a cigarette or haze after a rain. Neither forward looking nor purely reminiscent, he reverently recalls an era which “has passed forever.”

In the Mood for Love is showing at the Lagoon Theater. 612-825-6006.