Vorsicht Sehnsucht

Alain Resnais started as a French new wave director and is remembered for creating such classics as Hiroshima, mon amour (1959) and Last Year in Marienbad (1961). He often deals with the layers of memory, yearning, oblivion and death in man. He throws his characters into a story and sees what the fuss occurs. His latest film Les herbes folles or Wild Grass is a psychotic version of the conventional genre of romantic comedy. Les herbes folles is a new kind of comedy; it challenges the limitations of cinema and the fantastic imaginative narrative is something we haven't seen in decades.

A pickpocket steals a wallet of a woman. A man finds the wallet and since it has an ID card within he decides to return it to its owner. After a series of difficulties the woman gets her wallet but the man seems to be hoping for something more between them.

The characterization of the film is simplified but strong, it makes us question the role of a character in fiction. Marquerite (the woman) is purely a fictional figure: red haired dentist who loves flying. Georges (the man) is an ordinary suburban dad who has got a dangerously unstable personality. He thinks about murders and crimes, but is it all fantasy or could he actually do it? The character remains elusive, and I loved it.

Les herbes folles was Alain Resnais' first adaption from a novel, even that he has worked with many famous writers such as Marquarite Duras. Les herbes folles is based on a novel "L'Incident" by Christian Gailly. Alain Resnais has always adored "cheap" literature and the things he got from this small unknown novel amaze me. What I've heard is that Gailly's narrative is minimalist but the narrative of Les herbes folles in obviously the opposite. The 'mise-en-scene' is filled with precisely considered items that yet appear as ordinary furniture. An important addition Resnais made for the novel is the wild grass which grows from the gaps of the asphalt streets. Just as the grass so do the passions and desires of the characters run wild.

The visuality of Les herbes folles is imaginative and enchanting. Already in 1959 Resnais made innovative use of flashback in Hiroshima, mon amour and in Les herbes folles he mixes flashbacks, delusions and fantasies in a very unique, absurd way - overall the film is a courageously playful story. Both the editing and cinematography overwhelmed me they just make this a very aesthetic experience. The scene with the cops is full of close-up, stylized editing and quick zoom-ins and this absurd use of camera just reinforces the Kafkaesque in the entire scene.

Les herbes folles is a new beginning in a way, it's something Resnais has never done before and I hope we will see many great ones by him in the future as well. It's a film which plays around with cinema narrative with stylized editing and simplified characterization. In the end it grows out to be a mature antithesis for brainless romantic comedies and a wonderful aesthetic experience.

I came to IMDb seeking solace after wasting several hours of my life on this film, which got a three-out-of-four-star rating by my satellite provider and sounded interesting. I typically enjoy foreign and independent films.

I'm not sure why I stuck it through to the end ... maybe because it seemed like something would happen to make sense of the idiotic plot line, or at least help me understand something about the nauseatingly unlikeable characters! Needless to say, that didn't happen Glad I checked out the reviews here afterward, which gave me a good laugh. I enjoyed hearing others say they wanted not only their money - but their time - back after wasting it on this film.

By the way, someone wrote that this premiered at the same festival as The White Ribbon. Watch that instead. It's also cryptic, but beautifully done, and you'll be on the edge of your seat for the entire film ... instead of wondering when to cut your losses and make your escape!

A surreal, madcap, on-again, off-again romance between a married 63-year old father of two and a middle-aged dentist and airline pilot is the subject of 87-year old French director Alain Resnais' latest film, Wild Grass. Based on Christian Gailly's novel, The Incident, from a screenplay by Laurent Herbiet and Alex Reval, Wild Grass treats its characters with respect and humor, yet the film, winner of the Jury Special Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, stands out more for the colorful cinematography by Eric Gautier and fine acting from Resnais' regulars Sabine Azéma and André Dussollier than for its puzzling narrative.

The couple, Marguerite Muir (Azéma) and Georges Palet (Dussollier), meet after Marguerite, out shopping for a new pair of shoes, has her purse stolen by a thief on roller blades and consequently loses her red wallet filled with money, credit cards, and identification papers. Georges, however, recovers Marguerite's lost wallet beneath the wheel of his car and returns it to the police. Interested in aviation and intrigued by a photo of the wallet's owner dressed in a pilot's outfit, Georges decides that he wants to meet her.

After the police inform Marguerite that her wallet has been turned in, she calls Georges to say thank you but he is expecting more and his longing for connection is not satisfied, beginning a pursuit that soon becomes an obsession. He sends her letters, leaves messages on her phone, and slashes her tires to keep her at home but she wants nothing to do with him. Ultimately he persists until she informs the police of the unwanted intrusion in her life. Typical of the screwball relationship, however, she suddenly begins to pursue Georges on her own, making visits to his house late at night and waiting for him in a café outside of a movie theatre where he is watching a favorite film from his childhood, The Bridges at Toko Ri. "You love me, then," Georges exclaims when he sees her for the first time.

Throughout it all, there is an underlying hint of danger with suggestions made about Georges' possibly violent past which outbursts of temper seem to underscore. Even so, everything is handled with a light touch and one never fears for Marguerite's safety and elements of danger or even horror are quickly replaced by rapid shots of romance and even snippets of musicals. Like other aged directors swan songs, Rohmer's The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, Bergman's Saraband, and Kurosawa's Madadayo, Resnais', in his latest work, continues to grow and experiment, although some may say that the styles of these octogenarian directors have basically remained consistent throughout their careers.

Far removed from the seriousness of his most famous films, Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Last Year at Marienbad, just when you think you have figured out Wild Grass, Resnais' whimsy keeps shifting into new territory and its bizarre twists and turns, fake endings, and character reversals will keep you off balance right up until the film's final frame. Like the wild grass in the title which grows where it is least expected, nothing is predictable in this playful but often too cutesy little film.

Wild Grass begins, more or less, with a man finding a stolen wallet and returning it to the woman it belongs to. He then becomes obsessed with said woman and stalks and harasses her. She falls obsessively in love with him in turn, like you do.

Okay, let's cut straight to the point: the script is dreck, concealing its misogyny under layers of nonsensical character interaction and forced quirk. Cinephiles, who have never been really concerned with scripts in the first place, have lapped this up and praised it as a sign that the octogenarian Renais still has it. (And as an aside, it is totally badass that him and Godard are both still making films at this point.) And that's not wrong. The actual film has all of the charm the script lacks: it looks gorgeous, and between the lead actors and Resnais's idiosyncratic directing the film manifests most of the charm its script tries for.

And that's all well and good, but a film cannot subsist on charm alone. It's no a long movie, but the back half felt like an eternity to me. If you like movies where people wander around Paris and talk about old movies, this one is for you. If you don't, this is pretty to look at, but it's best not to look beneath the surface.

WILD GRASS, aka "Les Herbes Folles" in French, is aptly titled, naturellement. Such grass that grows wild, is unpredictable in how it blooms and affects its surrounding neighbors. It can be amazing or annoying, subtle or gregarious. Consulting my French-English dictionary: 'herbe' is grass, while 'folle' does mean mad, wild, foolish. Either way, veteran French filmmaker Alan Resnais, emboldened by his worthy age and years in the world of cinema, gave us quite a treat to what the joy of cinema can truly be, a film about a pair of 'madman and madwoman' - 'folles' foolish, tremendously so or otherwise.

The story is a series of events string together, seemingly easy to follow, with the comfort of a narrator voice-over interjecting certain rhyme or reason - the varying plot points converge, yet without notice, diverge also. Scratching your head? Don't mind that - ignore the inquisitive curious "why's" - why ever not! Go along with the characters offered and enjoy the ride.

A fabulous French cast: Sabine Azéma again is the leading lady Maguerite in exciting red frizzy hair-do, André Dussollier is Georges exuding his baffled charm in the guise of nonchalance, Anne Consigny is the unperturbed wife of Georges, Mathieu Amalric (of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" 2007) is one curiously affable French Police, Emmanuelle Devos (of "Read My Lips" 2001) is dear friend and go-between Josépha to Maguerite. At times the characters and situations might classify as caricature-like. The style and approach of cinematography (by Éric Gautier) and editing (by Hervé De Luze) skilfully call upon different genres and nostalgic inferences to cinema fantastique, along with vivid colorful set design, as seen in Maguerite's living space.

The wisdom of employing music by composer Mark Snow (of "The X-Files" who had collaborated with Resnais on his prior film "Private Fears in Public Places" 2006) deftly matches Resnais' non-conforming storytelling with mystery-tale notes infused, then it's catchy jazz rhythm, to gliding unobtrusive scores, sheer glove-fitting music accompaniment enhancing our Resnais-induced cinematic experience, indisputable.

I suspect Georges could still be under the influence of his 'grief' phase to his father's recent passed away, that any behavior irrational can be forgivingly disregarded by partner, family, friends. On the other hand, for Marguerite, she's probably bored by the day in and day out routines of her dentistry bread & butter profession, so why not succumb to a total stranger and go loop the loops in the vast sky of possibilities. Sure sounds dreamlike, capricious, unscrupulously playful - certainement. We are blessed with this dessert délicieux from Resnais at 87 (in 2009), hence ask not why. It's Wild Grass - no foreseen reason or logic. Take it in stride and s'amuser.

Bonus noted: subtitles were by Ian Burley, my favorite French/Italian film translator, who provided the outstanding subtitles in "Bread and Tulips" 2000. He was absolutely keen in matching rhymes on the English subtitles to the French lyrics sung in Resnais 1997 "Same Old Song" aka 'On Connaît la Chanson'.