L'accompagnatrice

Yelena Safonova is the blonde diva that gets the spotlights and the applause. Romane Bohringer is the self-deprecating accompanying pianist who stays in the dark and is painfully aware of here subsidiary role. One has a husband, a lover, and beautiful clothes, while the other looks very much like the starving student she was at the beginning of the story. One dialog tells all: when the diva makes a disparaging remark about a young man who seems interested in the pianist, she answers "Oh I'm sure he's nothing compared to *your* love affairs.

The rhythm and settings are beautiful without ever taking first place to the story.

Paris –1943. Paris is going through one of the hardest winters of its history -occupied and tortured by the Germans, freezing and starving, the City of Light hardly deserves its name. But Sophie Vasseur only just witnesses that misery. She has been recruited as the accompanist of Irene Brice, an opera singer, one of the few 'lights' still shining in Paris. Her husband Charles, a brilliant and rich businessman who loves her passionately, efficiently supports her agents and sponsors in protecting her from the unbearable reality, and Sophie, the shadow, cuddles in the shelter. Through all the ordeals that cost the life of so many, Charles carries Irene and Sophie, not even surprised to find themselves safe in London. But untouched by the universal suffering, Irene will create her own. Sophie could do something, but, unable to get out of her role of passive shadow and to understand she has power on her own, will she? A fascinating picture of destiny and how it affects human beings, whether they try to control it or not. Beautiful classical music too.

A seemingly small but strongly rendered film. Sophie, 20, lives in the poor quarter of Paris but is a talented and completely understated pianist. She gains employment as the accompanist for wealthy and daringly honest woman, a professional singer who graces the film with lush performances from Massenet, Brahms, Mozart etc... Yet she is a woman beholden to her husband who is himself in 'import-export' during WWII, ie. playing off both sides as long as he can. He's outspoken, she's a songbird with emotional depth and secrets, and the accompanist is near mute--observing, spying, daring herself to act and to reveal secrets, yet always loyal to her master.

Over and over the film goes to Sophie's face, watching her reactions, gauging what she's thinking of and what she might do next. And always, Romane Bohringer is up to the task. This is a great performance by a young French lead, comparable to Elodie Bouchez in La Vie Revee des Anges, but here she is wholly deferring, only gaining enough courage to talk to herself in the mirror. Always on the precipice of action, her almost blank impassive face gives the film tremendous suspense and great feeling.

The metaphors of the film are simple and mercifully left unspoken: if accompianment subsumes the self to the master performer, collaboration is a marriage that cannot be tolerated. In this way, the film speaks to the French dilemma and guilt of WWII but does so through the lens of marriage and the distant observer who becomes wound closer around the marriage bond than even she realizes, with startling results. If the key moment is about misdirection, then the film as a whole is about whether we allow ourselves to be misdirected.

The focus is small, but the themes are large and subtlely drawn. Likewise, the production is top notch--clear and never showy. The direction is near flawless, and the music is bright and finely wrought. You'll watch it for the music, for Bohringer pere et fille, but the story is every bit as interesting and patiently rendered as it needs to be. This is neither avant-garde, nor epic as we tend to expect much French fare is; it is closer in spirit to Patrice Leconte's work, but even more muted, but no less honest and surprising.

"L'Accompagnatrice" (1992) is fascinating when it focuses on the dynamics between its two main female characters: the Russian Elena Safonova is glorious as the opera singer (you can certainly tell why someone, regardless of gender, would be obsessed with her) and Romane Bohringer (acting alongside her real-life father) is perfectly enigmatic in the title role. It is somewhat less successful when it tries to expand its canvas too much, and deal (rather superficially) with French collaboration - vs. - resistance during WWII. Still, it's an accomplished film overall, and opera lovers may rate it even higher than my *** out of 4.

The Accompanist sure is an interesting movie. All about a girl who takes on a role as a piano player for a famous diva. In return, she escapes from the somewhat lower class life she leads, playing for a woman who is married to a guy who has suspicious leanings towards the Nazi party, but they're forced to flee anyways.

So yes, what we have here is a hybrid of The Pianist and The Princess Diaries. The plot goes further then that, exploring the many courtship the Piano player and yes, the Diva has. They also have to deal with political pressures brought on by the war, and her husband who can't really do much except go into one shady business deal after another.

The performances here are great, with the standout being Elena Safonova as the diva herself. All eyes are on her in every scene she's in, and what A voice! Not too sure if it's her own voice though…The rest of the cast is great as well.

Finally, did anyone else notice how this compares to the life of Celine Dion and her husband, Rene Angelil? Just wondering.