Claude Miller’s Therese

Thérèse Desqueyroux is not much of a home-maker.  She has servants for that sort of thing.  She is hardly mother of the year either.  She keeps up appearances as a dutiful wife, but she has no love and little respect for her husband.  Yet, embracing the woman of privilege as a feminist icon or a victim of bourgeoisie society is a tricky business.  The infamous protagonist of François Mauriac’s most celebrated novel will confound audiences again in the late Claude Miller’s final film, Thérèse (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

At first, the marriage of Thérèse Larroque and Bernard Desqueyroux makes perfect sense, because of their pines.  It is a way to combine the wooded estates of the two land-holding families.  Despite his wealth, her father is something of a leftwinger, which may have contributed to her contrary nature.  You will not find any of that in the rigidly conventional Desqueyroux family.  Alas, Bernard is a better hunter than a husband, but his newlywed wife seems even less interested in their domestic life together.

It turns out Thérèse’s childhood best friend and now sister-in-law has a more idealistic and melodramatic approach to love.  She has fallen for Jean Azevedo, the son of a wealthy local Jewish merchant.  Obviously, he is quite unacceptable to a family concerned about upholding their social standing.  It falls to the new Madame Desqueyroux to deal with this unwanted to suitor, who turns out to be considerably less serious about her sister-in-law than she is about him.  However, he awakens yearnings in Thérèse that only intensify her resentment of her uncouth husband.

A former protégé of Truffaut, Miller was a master of cinematic ambiguity and Thérèse Desqueyroux is a fitting character to grace his cinematic au revoir.  When she attempts to murder Bernard by manipulating his prescribed arsenic drops, her motivations are not entirely clear.  More boorish than brutish in Miller’s adaptation, he is no longer the abusive savage of Mauriac’s novel, but a rather sympathetic fool.  Clearly, the constraints of polite society rankle Mme. Desqueyroux, but they will remain regardless of her husband’s fate.  We have a clear sense the imp of perverse initially spurred her rash behavior, yet she continues her course of action in a coldly calculated manner.

Audrey Tautou’s icy detachment perfectly suits this Desqueyroux.  She is a tragic enigma, jealously guarding her conflicting thoughts and emotions from everyone around her.  In a bizarre case of dramatic jujitsu, Gilles Lellouche nearly steals the picture as Bernard Desqueyroux, who does his duty and keeps a stiff upper lip, because that is what gentlemen do.  His final scenes with Tautou have a finely wrought air of melancholy that come to define the film overall.

Perhaps Mauriac might have taken issue with Miller’s choices, but his Thérèse is a very good film.  It might appear to be a conventional period piece on the surface (especially without the original flashback structure), but its razor sharp portrayal of the dark complexities of human nature distinguishes it from the field.  Recommended for fans of French cinema and literary adaptations, Thérèse opens this Friday (8/23) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

Miller & Son’s I’m Glad My Mother is Alive

Thomas Jouvet has anger management issues. He also has mother issues. Frankly, they are more or less one and the same. In a nutshell, Jouvet was adopted and he is not about to forget it in Claude and Nathan Miller’s I’m Glad My Mother is Alive (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Jouvet and his younger brother once lived with their single mother, Julie Martino. Before long, the tragically irresponsible (and somewhat trampy) Martino gives up on her maternal pretenses, surrendering the boys for adoption. Yves and Annie Jouvet raise the boys as their own, but unlike his easy going younger sibling, Jouvet’s rage constantly boils over.

Although French adoption confidentiality laws are apparently quite strict, the twelve year old Jouvet somehow finds a bureaucrat willing to break the rules. Yet, he will not reintroduce himself to Martino for another twelve years. Though their relationship is always strained, Jouvet and Martino appear to reach an armistice. He even moves into her flat, becoming a legitimate big brother to his new half-brother Frédéric. And then they reach the third act.

A collaboration between father and son filmmakers, Glad definitely shows the influence of the senior Miller’s mentor, François Truffaut. Given the rage directed at mother figures though, one wonders what the women in the Miller family think of it. Regardless, they certainly have a talent for keeping viewers on edge during ostensibly banal scenes of regular life, while smoothly integrating the frequent flashbacks.

More than simply the lead, Vincent Rottiers is the film’s engine as the twenty year old Jouvet. He is scary good and a more than a little scary, showing all the roiling anger and long held resentments that threaten to erupt at a moment’s notice.

Like many of Miller’s films, there are a number of scenes whose full significance only becomes clear later in the narrative. For instance, there is a seemingly random flirtation with an attractive movie theater cashier (played by the charismatic Sabrina Ouazan) that in retrospect actually serves as a crossroads or turning point for the protagonist.

Granted, Glad indulges in a bit of pop psychology overkill, as Jouvet gets an intimate look at the childhood he was denied. However, the Millers largely resist the temptation to wallow the more Freudian themes they sometimes imply. They also honestly follow through on the events they set in motion, rather than copping out with a cheap Oprah ending. Do not expect to see Glad on the OWN network anytime soon (or any challenging film for that matter). R.L. Burnside’s “Bad Luck City” is even heard in the soundtrack, which is very cool indeed.

Glad boasts a truly fine supporting cast, yet it is really Rottiers’ show. Sort of a “feel bad” movie, but a highly accomplished film, it is definitely recommended for everyone who does not need everything wrapped up in a smiley face for them (basically those of us living in the real world). Another intriguing film from Claude Miller and hopefully a foretaste of things to come from his son, Glad opens this Friday (9/2) at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

Claude Miller’s Secret

Is it possible for children to inherit the guilt of their parents? It can certainly cause pain and long-term distortions of familial relationships. When family secrets involve post-Holocaust survivor’s guilt, the emotional fissures could cleave deeply, as is the case in Claude Miller’s A Secret (trailer here), opening today in New York.

François has a strained relationship with his father Maxime. Told in multiple flashbacks, we see the young François as a frail child, who appears to be a constant disappointment to his athletic father. To compensate for his feelings of inadequacy, he creates an imaginary brother, who is everything François is not. However, whenever he refers to the imaginary Simon, he is sternly rebuked by his father.

More than just a defense mechanism, Simon seems to fill a deeper void he does not fully understand. Eventually, a friend of the family reveals the truth to him—Simon was his flesh-and-blood half-brother, but he and his mother, Maxime’s first wife Hannah, perished in the concentration camps.

In a flashback within a flashback, we see that Maxime was not always such a distant father. With Simon he was the picture of paternal pride and affection. His fidelity as a husband is an altogether different matter. Though married to the adoring Hannah, his eye often wandered to her glamorous sister Tania, who is now his second wife and François’s mother. Maxime also causes great consternation by refusing to register as a Jew or to wear the yellow star. Many in their circle see it as a rejection of his Jewish faith and heritage, but as deportation of French Jews begins, Maxime is tragically vindicated.

Maxime the man of action sets about arranging passage for his family out of France, going ahead to prepare the way for Hannah and Simon. Yet simmering family resentments persist, resulting in a plot turn that is hard to believe, but that is sort of the point. It is a decision that is so difficult to accept, it literally haunts every character of the film, causing the toxic guilt that metastasizes throughout François’s family.

Secret can be a bit problematic, in that it addresses the Holocaust in very distant, antiseptic terms. Yet, that is by necessity, because much of the resulting anguish stems from uncertainty. Miller’s direction is deftly understated, leading the audience to a simple but honestly redemptive ending. The director elicits strong performances from his cast, including his three youthful actors, who are all credible and not at all cloying or irritating. As the adult François, Mathieu Amalric effectively serves as both the narrator and conscience of the film, and Patrick Bruel conveys the humanity of the tortured Maxime.

At its core, Secret is a story about family more than anything else, but it happens to be a family deeply scarred by the crimes of National Socialism. Miller is an under-appreciated director, who has crafted a highly literate body of films, like the Ruth Rendell adaptation Alias Betty. While perhaps requiring some patience during the early establishing scenes of family dysfunction, Secret is also a very impressive film that is definitely recommended. It opens today in New York at the Paris Theatre (which celebrates its 60th anniversary with free popcorn and soda for ticket holders on September 13th).