Nettoyage à sec

Sad, melancholic, nostalgic and soft.

A film about illusions and impossibility of escape. Description of failure and ambiguous expectation. French flavor and marks from Pasolini, empty universes and slices of love, game without innocence and failure of dreams.

A world, a small world where the work is only real refuge. Where the memories or the projects are shadows of a lost time and a bovaric certitude.

Delicate and tender, subtle and innocent, this film is a pledge for discover the sense of existence. The image of war with the other or with yourself, the fear like basic answer to the movement of time, the questions like skin of interior fog, the presence of temptation in the person of an androgynous teenager, the looks, deceptions or infidelity are elements of ordinary life. For everyone, "The Queens of Night" are key to a second chance, to a form of happiness. But always, the happiness is puzzle of illusions and the old rules are more strong that any form of seduction. In final, the corpse of a gorgeous dream like only "souvenir" of a perverse form of normality.

The mellow, mesmerising tune of the theme music by Edouard Dubois made me watch this movie twice while on a transcontinental flight. The music was only one reason among others that made me watch the film twice in four hours. I am a French film enthusiast and the contents of the film (latent homosexuality, guilt, cross dressing, etc.)were not out of the ordinary. What was striking in the film was the deliberate, structured screenplay that made me recall early works of Marcel Carne. I was not surprised to learn that the screenplay won an award at the prestigious Venice Film Festival and nominated for a Cesar in France.

The film's beginning and end revolve around affirmation of marital bonds, while the bulk of the film (to me only the sub-plot) ventures into transgression of those bonds followed by redemption. There is sadness at the end but it also accompanied by a silent studied reaffirmation of faith between man and wife. The final walk of the duo is an ordinary event yet captured powerfully in this film. I recommend this film to those who have not seen it not as a film that is extraordinary, but one which encourages viewers to introspect and look at ordinary lives, not of superheroes but of less than perfect men and women. The film succeeds because of low-keyed acting (Merhar and Miou-Miou), the sombre yet mesmerising music and good mise-en-scene. The film discusses "drycleaning" of two individuals' marital life, but the script and the director elevate the wife as strong personality with a level-headed strength developed quite unobtrusively as the film progresses. Anne Fontaine, the director, is someone to watch out for in the future as is Edouard Dubois. In more ways than one (direction, cinematography, the script) the film gives a woman's perspective of the story, though a wee bit sombre.

To me, a romantically inclined gay man, this was a fascinating but ultimately unfulfilling tale of a `normal' French couple, Nicole and Jean-Marie Kunstler, who have grown unsatisfied with their settled, routine lives. The couple runs a dry cleaning business in an unexciting small French town. Their lives change when they go to a bar with some business associates and encounter Loïc and Marylin, a cross dressing brother/sister act. From the first, the couple is fascinated with the pair but particularly with Loïc, the sexually ambiguous brother, (played to perfection by Stanislas Merhar).

The couple is so enchanted with the pair that they take a weekend to the city where the performers are appearing next. When the sister decides to end the act and run away with her lover, the brother insinuates himself into the couples lives. The young man claims to be, and is by all indications, straight and soon takes the wife as a lover. The husband is also aroused by the boy but denies his attraction. Soon the boy is living in the couple's home and working in the Dry Cleaning shop and is showing a talent for that type of work. He even befriends the couple's child and helps him with homework and takes him skating.

Whether his good work arises from Loïc's desire to repay Jean-Marie or from some innate talent for dry cleaning is unclear. I think that Loïc feels guilty about cuckolding this man who has shown him nothing but kindness, genuinely likes the guy, and is aware of the man's attraction to him. He wants to make amends in any way that he can. Ultimately Loïc offers himself to Jean-Marie physically but is rebuffed.

Whether it's the husband's `homosexual panic' or his actually seeing his wife with Loïc during one of their trysts, Jean-Marie decides that Loïc must go. This leads to the final and I think dissatisfying concluding scenes.

the idea is far to be now. the performances - decent. in fact, correct use of stereotype who was imposed by Teorema. the young seductive man. the wife remembering Madame Bovary. the husband on the top of solitude. provocative scenes and dialogues. not real surprising end. the only memory after few years after I saw it - the atmosphere. the ambiguous sexuality, the crisis of marriage and the last decision. and nothing more because the film is just occasion to intrigue, seduce and propose an idea who represents part of many couples fear.

An interesting and somewhat mysterious tale of a middle aged couple who grow disillusioned with their dry cleaning business and find outlet with a cross dressing brother-sister-lover couple of performers. Their mutual obsession naturally leads to the demise of their relationships, businesses and ultimately their lives.

The script is a bit dry, and lacks the punch that the subject matter is capable of delivering. Near the final act it tries to catch up as the homosexual attraction between the young man and the older husband comes zooming out of nowhere. A good editor would've suggested they drop some kind of hint earlier on.

The abrupt and troubling ending leaves you satisfied.