Die geheimnisvolle Fremde

A phenomenally ambitious, mostly successful film that (almost) atones for the cardinal sin that was Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. It says so much about cinema audiences that Midnight in Paris was so popular. Here's a film that is startlingly beautiful, utterly intriguing and perfectly cast, and with a drop dead gorgeous soundtrack. The result? A lot of very angry people because... it didn't make sense. No-one mentions that the "Midnight" script had holes you could drive a truck through, because they had a good time. Wake up, people! You're getting the cinema you deserve and it ain't pretty. Or maybe it is. How about Mark Wahlberg and a teddy bear? There you go. That works. Don't blame Hollywood (where I live and work). You're voting with your wallets. Films like The Woman in the Fifth that need intellectual and emotional input from its audience are being stoned to death. The world's becoming a Disney theme park and you're all accessories after the fact. If you think that the word "consumer" is an insult, there's still hope. Take a moment. Watch this film. It isn't perfect. The balance between physical and metaphysical is off and therein lies the confusion. Kieslowski (another obvious comparison) would have handled it better but he wasn't hampered by a literary source when he made La Double Vie. But... it's fKKKing gorgeous. Difficult, challenging, flawed? Yes, but I'll take it over the processed pap that is the American mainstream anytime.

The Woman in the Fifth (2011)

Well, the reason this movie gets some pretty awful reviews is the utter confusion of the plot. And yet it's a deliberate confusion--which is no excuse. It just means this isn't quite bad filmmaking, but a bad decision or two taken too far.

You see, the main character, played with ease and almost familiarity by Ethan Hawke, is mentally unstable. He seems to have two distinct realities, and these are easily confused by the viewer. And in one of these realities he does terrible things, though it isn't clear because we see those terrible things as innocently as he does (which is to say, not at all, it seems).

The character, Tom Ricks, is an American in Paris, a writer ostensibly in town to find and visit his daughter. But the mother's reaction to his showing up at their house is the first clue that something is wrong. This seemingly smart and very nice fellow scares her to call to the police. We see Ricks run to save himself from arrest but we don't quite know if he's to blame or if the mother is just overreacting.

The fact is the confusions in the movie are overwhelming. Maybe there was a better logic somewhere that an editor, under pressure from a producer or distributor, made much out of. Or maybe it was an artful decision to leave us bewildered, to spend time and emotional energy gathering the pieces and clues. The director, Pawel Pawlikowski, has something of a success or two behind him and so might have pretensions that got the better of things here.

In a way, the movie is better than it's overall impression by the end. There are numerous scenes that show a modern Paris very far removed--and much more revealing--than the glorified city seen in both mainstream French movies and American love letters like Woody Allen's recent time-travel. And the acting is overall restrained and convincing. In its bones, this is a substantial movie. Most of all, the cinematography is superb, some of the best creative stuff I've seen recently, dependent not on creative editing but on smart visual seeing--framing, kinetics, focus, and so on. I think you could watch it on many levels with great pleasure if you knew ahead of time the overall meaning and plot were going to be a mess.

Without forewarning, I'm guessing it leaves mostly frustration and bitterness.

If you enjoy a movie with loads of atmosphere that leads you deeper and deeper into a complex mystery, and then refuses to give easy answers, then you will love "The Woman in the Fifth" - I know I do.

An American writer, Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke), arrives in Paris to try to meet with his daughter. His ex-wife immediately calls the police and we realise that there has been some ugly history between them.

Broke, Tom is given a room in a seedy hostel in exchange for taking a job as a nightwatchman in the basement of a strange building. At a literary gathering he meets Margit Kadar (Kristen Scott Thomas). Margit lives in the fifth arrondissement - the woman in the fifth - and they have an affair. His life starts to take unexpected turns. At the hotel, he also has an affair with a young Polish waitress, and a confrontation with the aggressive man in the next room. All the while, trying various ways to see his daughter.

By the end of the film there has been a murder, a kidnapping, and revelations about Margit Kadar that reveal that all is not right with Tom Ricks. Not much is explained at the end - the last scene leaves us wondering.

Movies that blur the line between what is real and what is being imagined have been around for a while now. Back in the days of Film Noir it usually turned out that it was all just a dream - a not too satisfying resolution that quickly became trite. However, over the last couple of decades, movies that blur the line have become much trickier.

The process in more recent times may have started with movies that are not exactly ghost stories, but feature people who don't know they are dead. A forerunner was "Carnival of Souls" in 1962, but Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" wasn't the only one to see dead people, they popped up in "Jacob's Ladder", "The Others", "Passengers", and "November" to name a few.

Then there are the split personalities - the cinematic interpretation of schizophrenia. David Lynch's films, "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Dr." come to mind. Then there is "Fever", "A Beautiful Mind", and the recent "I, Anna" as well as "Trance", which have explored this phenomenon. "The Woman in the Fifth" belongs with this group.

Although that tricky shift between the real and the imaginary has probably been seen a few times too often now, "the Woman in the Fifth" does it well. This intriguing film has an affecting central story, a fascinating location and compelling performances all round.

The American professor of literature and novelist Tom Hicks (Ethan Hawke) travels to Paris to see his beloved daughter Chloé (Julie Papillon) that lives with her mother Nathalie (Delphine Chuillot). However, Nathalie uses the restraining order to call the police and avoid letting Tom to meet Chloé.

Tom flees from the police and takes a bus but he is tired and sleeps. When he awakes in a poor neighborhood, he finds that his luggage and money were robbed. He goes to a bar and the Polish waitress Ania (Joanna Kulig) brings a coffee for him. He asks for a room and explains that he had been robbed and she asks him to talk with the owner Sezer (Samir Guesmi) that allows him to stay in a very low budget room and pay him later. Then Sezer offers a job of night watchman in a suspect building.

One day, Tom goes to a bookstore and is invited to a party with writers where he meets Margit Kadar (Kristin Scott Thomas), who is a translator and widow of a Hungarian writer. She gives her address and telephone to Tom. Soon Tom has a love affair with Margit at her apartment and with Ania on the roof of the bar. But Tom is also obsessed by his daughter, snooping around Chloé during the days. When his next door neighbor at the hotel that is blackmailing Tom is found dead, his only alibi is Margit. But when the police officers go to her place, they discover that she had committed suicide many years ago.

"La femme du Vème" is one of those movies like "Triangle" where there is no explanation for bizarre and surrealistic situations. I am not sure whether the director Pawel Pawlikowski had this intention or not, but forget any explanation about the plot and simply enjoy (or not) the movie.

David Lynch is the master of this style while Claude Chabrol was the French master of thrillers with open endings to make the viewer think and discuss possibilities. But this is the practically unknown Pawel Pawlikowski and I was disappointed with the lack of conclusion of the good plot. But as an unconditional fan of Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke, I do not regret this strange experience. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Estranha Obsessão" ("Weird Obsession")

Watch this with a group and have a great discussion on questions like: What happened in that movie? What was that about? How much of the content was symbolic and how much of it was actually concrete?

Or watch it alone and become miserably confused.