La cautiva

This film gets only 5.9?! First, I love Proust, but you do not have to read this specific part of 'In Search of Lost Time' to appreciate this extraordinary story of obsession and the need of one lover to absorb another, and the other lover to need to keep both a distance and a mystery in the relationship.

Chantal Akerman was arguably one of France's greatest directors before she was tragically lost. She was focused in a way that makes most directors seem fuzzy, and her talent with both images and actors was unbeatable. That her images and pacing take their time demands attention from an audience like any work of art. She uses Rachmaninov's music 'Isle of the Dead' as a key motif in sound that puts other overlaid music in most films to shame. I am here to praise this film, but her work as a whole deserves perhaps more praise than it gets. Eric De Kuyper, a great writer who wrote the script with her, is also a filmmaker of importance. Eric De Kuyper, a great writer who wrote the script with her, is also a filmmaker of importance. Everything is in order in this film. Both lead actors are superb, especially Stanislas Merhar who is, in my opinion, a male Garbo among actors. Elusive, beautiful and always holding an essential mystery in his way of acting, he rivets the gaze of the viewer to the screen. There is nothing to fault in this film, and impatient viewers, which most reviewers are, should watch it more than once. It deserves more than the insulting 5.9 it has been given, but then this perhaps reflects the quality of the eyes and minds that receive it.

Modern day adaptation of a section of Proust's magnum opus that is true enough to the book in its theme and events and interestingly has the Marcel character still sunk in an archaic, aristocratic world.

KD Lang lookalike Stanislas Merhar does a good job doing the insulated, emotional (and physical) frailty, trapped in an adolescent infatuation of towering poetic naivety, all the while consumed with jealousy by the suspicion that his live-in girlfriend is an active lesbian behind his back.

It's slow. There's a lot of prowling around his creaking Paris apartment, lots of talking in cars - we seem to be taking entire journeys in real time. Akerman gave herself an easy directing job. The use of classical music is lazy - Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is suitably Proustian, but Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead is absurdly melodramatic, especially when played incongruously, Godard-fashion, over serene images.

Those familiar with the writer and director can easily pull back the gauze to reveal the real issues - an inverted couple struggling to maintain a hetero relationship - but that is so superficial it hardly seems worth special effort and the film works better with the ambiguity in place (as intended), with the implication that naivety (misunderstanding, confusion) is at the root of jealous passion. The Marcel character is so naïve that in the sex scenes he doesn't even know that he is supposed to put it in - doing the movements without getting undressed (he's in bed in his overcoat in one scene). That was strangely tragic, and although it may have been a stylisation to symbolise their failure to connect, it was easier to take it literally.

With liberties like that though, and done so earnestly, it's craves some indulgence. The worst problem is that the girl is comatose and unattractive, showing nothing of Albertine's sprightliness and guile that gave that character her painful duplicity. The ending too is a disappointment.

Having recently discovered French actress Sylvie Testud when I saw The Chateau, I was interested in this film because she's in it. I haven't read the story that the film is supposedly based on so I had nothing to compare it to when I saw it and therefore I went in without any preconceived notions. And with a film like this, a film that doesn't operate on any conventional filmmaking level, that is a very good thing.

This movie doesn't try to tell you what to think or feel about its characters; there is none of the contrivances so common in American movies, none of the manipulation. It just simply presents them and follows them and allows them to do what they do without the camera cutting away too soon for fear that the audience will get bored when there's not a lot "going on" in a scene - in fact some of the best scenes in the film have hardly any movement at all. And this is not done in a self-conscious, 'arty' let's-create-mood sort of way, which makes watching it - or rather experiencing it - even more hypnotic.

This is a film that must be experienced more than once, I would say: you're not really sure what's transpired OR how you feel about what you've witnessed upon a first viewing because it doesn't hit all the 'buttons' that a commercial film is compelled to hit. And Testud is brilliant, managing to imply complexity without demonstrating it (if that makes sense) - she's beyond subtle, beyond sublime.

At the start I found this film very slow and I think anyone would who did not appreciate its nature before watching it.

It's easy in this one to be put off with the almost entirely gloomy settings, however, they are part of the film and, as you begin to appreciate what the film is actually about, they make a lot more sense.

The film is not about a plot or a story, it is about the people in it. Nor does it tell you what it is about the people that you are meant to see. So this film is very much for the viewer who likes to watch, observe, think and conclude.

You basically get a very slow and moody perspective on a strange(?) boy girl relationship. The interaction between them is never really explained until right up till the end, so it's a case of watching and wondering what is going on between them.

Apparently uneventful, I found myself being slowly drawn into, seduced by, their romance, question being stacked on question till I did really feel a bit frustrated.

However, in the last 30-40 minutes this film suddenly becomes alive and you begin to understand what the point of it was. The point is very poignant and sad and would never have been put across had the earlier 3/4 of the film not been so 'uneventful'.

If you like poetry, you will probably like this film. It has you wondering and speculating right up to the last stanza when you then realise the point of what came before. It is a very sad but beautiful poem.

Though maintaining a very low-key tone, this immediately looks and feels so very different from Chantel Akerman's earlier films ('Je tu il elle,' 'Les rendez-vous d'Anna,' and especially 'Jeanne Dielman') that I had to periodically check to make sure I was watching the right movie, and one of hers. Music is prominent at intermittent points (very much enriching the proceedings whenever it does crop up), and the soundtrack is generally kind of busy; the camera moves, and the narrative on mind is much more discrete, active, and dynamic than has been the case elsewhere with Akerman. Yet this is invariably of the same high quality one expects from the filmmaker, exquisitely crafted with all the skill and intelligence we know she possessed. It may not be readily appealing for those who seek quicker gratification from cinema, but whether one is a fan of Akerman specifically or just looking for a good, subdued drama, 'La captive' is excellent.

This retains to some extent, within the framework of a slightly more conventional drama, the minimalism that the filmmaker had mastered early in her career. There is rather little going on in a scene at any given time, and the acting is kept at a very controlled, muted tenor. Be that as it may, as director Akerman orchestrates shots and scenes with the same keen artistic eye she had shown from the start, and the feature is curious and engrossing right away. Sabine Lancelin echoes the broad airs of quiet refinement with cinematography that's crisp and vivid in capturing every shot, making the viewing experience all the more pleasing. This is all the more true in light of gorgeous filming locations, and exquisite production design and art direction, that pop out with terrific color and elegance; naturally the hair, makeup, and costume design are just as splendid, if less prevalent.

Above all, however, Akerman has conjured a story that's a bit dark and haunting in a way, and roundly intriguing and captivating. 'La captive' is thought-provoking as pensive Simon, controlling to the point of abuse, nonetheless flounders when he realizes he doesn't know everything about Ariane, and never could. Perplexing as it may be that Ariane willingly attached herself to Simon, genuine affection can't withstand the disparity between them. Both characters are shrewdly complicated, and the dialogue between them, or in Simon's attempts to gain more understanding, is absorbing in and of itself. The scene writing is stark and unexpectedly bewitching in the hushed buzz of tension that underlies this central relationship, from the coldness of early scenes to the more heightened drama of the last stretch. It's a great credit to Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar, and (in a smaller supporting part) Olivia Bonamy that they infuse so much nuanced range and depth of emotion into their roles in light of what is mostly so restrained a picture, and this couldn't have the underhanded potency that it does without them.

Even Akerman's most highly acclaimed and well known movies are unquestionably best suited for a select audience. While this one bears more similarity in some ways to titles that most viewers would be more familiar and comfortable with, it's nonetheless still quite understated, and without even taking the subject matter into consideration it won't appeal to all. For my part I wouldn't necessarily say that it's as strong as some of Akerman's other works, either, though that's just a matter of personal preference. Him and haw as one might about the particulars, however, all the same I think this is very well done, a finely made, engaging, and satisfying exploration of a fraught relationship. It may not be something one needs to go out of their way to see, but if you do have the opportunity to watch then 'La captive' is well worth two hours of one's time as far as I'm concerned.