Le battement d'ailes du papillon

Laurent Firode's film Happenstance (2000) is an extended meditation on the relationship between fate and perception. In a film with few real characters and no discernable plot, Firode would seem to be doing nothing more than expounding a form of applied chaos theory if it wasn't for the fact that this film is so much fun. The joy of this film comes with the god's-eye view afforded to the viewer. In a single day of Parisian urban interactions, none of the characters perceive the intricate web of chance that ties them together to the delight of the audience.

Happenstance uses chance relations to construct a paradigm which allows for a kind of karmic justice to flourish. As the human mind develops free will from the deterministic relationships of atoms and molecules, so justice emerges from a series of random seeming encounters. The lovers meet, as they were destined to. The cheating husband avoids harming his innocent son. Luc Gossard admits his failings, and while he loses his job, he gains his inheritance.

This perspective could be termed a sort of theoretical physicist's version of karma. Complex systems with seemingly random cause-effect relations are recognized to have very significant levels of emergent organization when seen from different scales. The human mind is one example; the formation of the solar system from clouds of cosmic dust is another. Biology can offer the concept of evolution, which is based on random-seeming interactions between predator and prey leading to extremely complex forms and survival mechanisms, from the venus fly trap to the giraffe. Is it so very unbelievable that a network of humans (intelligent particles) can exhibit an emergent intelligence of its own?

jonny muggs

Films that crisscross different stories are no novelty (Short Cuts, Magnolia, Iossellani's "Favoris de la lune"...) but few of them have dared go as far as "Le battement d'ailes...". It would take a good deal of thinking and remembering to tell just HOW MANY stories are embedded in this wonder. And it would be pointless because, precisely, the object of the film is to show that it is not possible to separate one individual story from another.

One day in the life of so many people, characters that can be in turn charming, infuriating, lovable... And, on top of that, you get the feeling the director really loves them all (or, at any rate, most of them because some are frankly off-putting. That's life, here, just for you, on the screen.

An admirable attempt that winds up about as charming and magical as calculating a checksum. Still to create a "love story" wherein the main characters never speak to each other was an interesting feat. Ultimately I got the sense that the director didn't want us to attach to any one character too much for fear that we would lose track of the plight and the path of the cosmic pinball connecting them all.

Other films have traced the vagaries of existence, I'll never forget "Slacker" and its camera-as-transmittable-disease approach. That film, and others had characters that drew you in with more than a powerful pout and a pop star. Also the idiots in that film were more reckless than wretched. Here we have some despicable folks...

One of them is, pardon my (lack of) french, a dick. Indeed that is how he is introduced to us, full frontal and head on. We've also got a heartless mother, a selfish roommate, a compassionless store clerk, a petty thief and a liar. Well at least the liar does have a bit of reckoning, and provides some humor along the way.

At various points in the film, popular methods of charting the fates are engaged. A horoscope, tarot cards, a palm reading, a strange scrambling of the letters of a name, I don't think there were any tea leaves to be read. These methods are generally dismissed, but the intricate criss-crossing of the crasser crowd does help to guide our stars towards a more star-crossed pairing.

Will they meet or miss by the width of a butterfly's wing??

More importantly, will the audience care? At the end of the film, I found myself more intrigued by a bald character who we meet during another game of chance in a park (when "le penis" stakes his actions to the toss of a pebble). His bald comments and clear voicing of intention make him stand out like a lucid dream.

What the hell is he doing? Is his act of volition meant to taunt us, the invisible voyeurs in every scene? Or is he god...not playing dice with the universe, but loading the pebble? I'm afraid I'm making this film seem more interesting than it was...the battle of will versus fate versus karma versus various crystal balls, like the depth of the characters never quite gets to the foreground.

But perhaps by my not enjoying this film so much, I will not tip as much the next time I go out to eat, so your roommate will come home in a crabby mood, so you'll not go out to the Bottom of the Hill together, instead you'll rent a movie from the bald incarnation of Zeus at your local video store who *intentionally* will slip this DVD into the "Slacker" box you thought you were going to rent.

And you'll love it...

But in case that doesn't happen...

5/10

This film is cute and spirited but not particularly deep. I was drawn into the film just to see how far this director would take this outworn theory that every event in life effects things immediately around us. There is a Law of Cause and Effect that determines what happens to an individual, but the theories of luck, fate, predestination and coincidence are not true. Therefore, I had some trouble accepting the butterfly theory. The butterfly or a man does something and something happens as a result of that action. It does not happen in the nice convenient way that this film seems to wish us to believe. In other words, our actions determine our life but do not, necessarily, influence those around us, though they may.

Audrey Tautou is as charming and delightful as she was in Amelie. The supporting cast is delightful. The film is delightful and I recommend it. Just do not get so caught up in the "message" of the film for it is fairly meaningless.

Do you know about the Butterfly Effect? Sure you do. Jeff Goldblum explained it in Jurassic Park: "A butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park you get rain instead of sunshine." As one might guess from the title itself, Happenstance is all about randomness and chance. It details how the tiniest of events can lead to a particular outcome--in this case, the uniting of two soulmates.

Happenstance adheres strictly to its philosophy, perhaps to a fault. The film skips from person to person in what is quite a large ensemble cast, itemizing how each of them contributes to the system. Due to the intricacies of details involved, in order to bring the audience to the "main" characters' resolution, it fails to follow up on supporting players, many of whom shared as much screen time as the leads. As a result, audiences might be left with more questions than what answers the ending provides. This might be solved by extending the length of the film to follow the other characters, but Happenstance borders on sluggishness at 90 minutes.

Still, because of the film's constant reverence to its notions of chance and fate, it leaves us with a sense of faith that "happenstance" will come to everyone in their own turn.

With such a large cast, it's surprising that there seem to be no weak links among them.

We get to see a different side of Audrey Tautou's spectrum than the naive, wide-eyed dreamer we're familiar with... Here, she's a bit cynical, certainly a realist, and at times, rather self-centered. Her eyes and head hang a little low, and the pixie we watched in Amélie practically disappears. As with He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, this film is not a great challenge to her acting abilities, but she provides a simple role with solid performance.

The same can be said with all the cast, though it's a bit challenging to match actors' names with the characters' faces. They each play his or her role evenly, with a unique and distinguishable set of strengths and weaknesses.

Such characterization was obviously well thought out by Laurent Firode, who wrote and directed Happenstance. He does a magnificent job at characterization, and one wonders how great he might do with a film focused on two or three main characters. His visual style, while not overpowering, also contributes greatly to the presentation of detail in the film.

Don't rent this expecting Audrey Tautou in every scene, but if you wish to sample some more of her acting, or if you're just interested in an intelligent foreign film, Happenstance should leave you happy.