If
any old picture is worth a thousand words than the sweat equity that goes into
a daguerreotype ought to increase the exchange rate dramatically. In fact, a
rather anti-social photographer is convinced daguerreotypes constitute the only
true photography. The punishing lengths of time he requires his subjects to sit
almost seems to be part of their appeal. Not surprisingly, the only models who
would regularly endure his long sittings were his late wife and his neurotic
dead-ringer daughter. As a result, his new assistant will be walking into a
rather tense family dynamic and maybe, possibly a slightly haunted house in
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s first French language film, Daguerrotype
(trailer here),
which screens during the 2017 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film in New
York.
Jean
is initially hired as Stéphane’s assistant precisely because he has no proper
photography baggage. He also doesn’t seem to mind working long hours, after his
extended period of unemployment (this was Hollande’s France, after all). The
old man finds him adequately adequate, but his nervous daughter Marie takes a
liking to him. She clearly sees Jean as a potential ally in her quiet campaign
to lead a more independent life. Of course, the obsessive daguerreotypist would
not care to lose his best and really only model.
Stéphane
is also not inclined to move from his spacious but ramshackle villa either,
despite the lucrative offers made by the local council and Jean’s efforts to
nudge him along (for a sizable commission). It seems his property is dead smack
in the middle of a proposed “green works” boondoggle. It also might be haunted.
Now and then, Kurosawa will show us hints of the uncanny, but he will maintain
the ambiguity until very late in the third act.
In
terms of its tone and approach to the supernatural Daguerrotype compares very directly with Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper. However, it lacks the
breathlessly intense prologue of the Shopper,
which really sets up the audience on pins and needles for the rest of the film.
Instead, each door that mysteriously opens raises our hopes that he will
finally get into it, only to find it is another tease.
Still,
enormous credit is due to Olivier Gourmet who is absolutely riveting as the
arrogant, guilt-ridden, and possibly delusional Stéphane. Frankly, one of the
most frightening aspects of the film is watching him fall into an ambiguous
mental state somewhere between sanity and madness. Tahar Rahim broods well
enough as Jean, but Constance Rousseau’s remarkable portrait of Marie is achingly
fragile and somewhat off. As usual, it is also fun to watch Mathieu Amalric do
his thing in a small but colorful role as Stéphane’s sleazy agent.
