(2 of 2)
It could certainly have been the most French film of the year: an intimate mellow drama about instantly recognizable people, with little action and a haunting aftertaste. Nelly (Beart) is 25, bright, adorable, unhappily married; her only bad habit is in confessing to indiscretions she has not yet committed. M. Arnaud (Michel Serrault), a successful jurist and businessman at the end of his career, is writing his memoirs. He needs an assistant, and when he meets Nelly, he realizes that he needs one last immersion in the idea of love. He doesn't preen; his only showing off is in the machismo of the elderly--pretending that sharp pains don't hurt. Nor does he make a grab for Nelly. But one night he watches her sleep, his hand gently gliding above her skin like a Hovercraft.
Serrault (flossy Albin in the original film La Cage aux Folles) is a master at expressing passion through discretion. Beart (Manon of the Spring, Un Coeur en Hiver), routinely described as the most beautiful young actress in France, makes deft use of her Cocteau-painting eyes and her shy, wonderfully knowing smile. Together they create a lovely love story from what could have been a farce. Old man, pretty woman; beguiling little film.
The theme is similar in Andre Techine's Ma Saison Preferee: a middle-aged man (Daniel Auteuil) and his sister (Deneuve) facing their mother's illness and renewing their childhood intimacy, the closest bond either has known. Even when French films address volcanic feelings, they do so obliquely. Techine, who made the superb memory film Wild Reeds, seems to want to atone for the domestic skyrockets he launches in Ma Saison's first half-hour, highlighted by Deneuve's scalding remark to her attractive husband: "You've aged badly, Bruno." Sure enough, the whole family soon retreats into compromise and confession.
Deneuve, the darling of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg 32 years ago, has aged gracefully; her face has acquired character, a kind of pinched authority. The sister she plays here could easily be a cliche--the efficient, neurotic manager of other people's lives--but Deneuve gives her moral gravity and grace. That is what we need from a screen beauty. As a star, Deneuve seduces us into watching her; as an actress, she reveals complexities of character we might otherwise ignore.
--By Richard Corliss