Così fan tutti

Comme une image (2004) was co-scripted and directed by Agnès Jaoui. (The film is known as Look at Me in the U.S. It's a reasonable title--just not the title the Director gave it.)

The plot concerns a group of educated and successful Parisians whose lives intersect in both Paris and Burgundy. The protagonist is Lolita Cassard, played by Marilou Berry. Lolita is a dedicated vocal student, whose most serious problem is that her father--played by Jean-Pierre Bacri--is too self-absorbed to pay much attention to her. Étienne Cassard is a noted author and publisher, who cares about his work, his position of power, and, to some extent, his beautiful trophy wife and their young daughter (Lolita's half-sister). Lolita's life is more trouble to him than he cares to accept, so he chooses to ignore her or belittle her.

Lolita is overweight, and acutely conscious of this because she is surrounded by elegant women of all ages who are slender. Lolita blames her problems on her weight and--reasonably enough--she can't bring herself to accept her father's lack of interest, let alone his lack of compassion.

Into this equation comes Sylvia Millet, Lolita's vocal coach. Incredibly, director/screenwriter Jaoui also stars in this pivotal role. (It's hard to believe that Jaoui can be both an outstanding director and an experienced star. It's even harder to believe that she can direct herself in such a nuanced and intelligent performance. She must be Wonder Woman!)

Sylvia has true compassion and affection for Lolita, but she's not a saint, and is not above using her influence with Lolita to advance her husband's writing career.

To my mind, Agnès Jaoui represents the perfect French film star. She looks talented, intelligent, and strong, and she's also very attractive in a non-conventional way.

One reviewer wrote, "Look at Me is about nothing and everything simultaneously." I disagree. It's not about everything, but it is about love, friendship, ambition, hurtfulness, and betrayal.

Classical music is played and sung throughout the film, and it's outstanding. Be prepared to hear songs and arias by Verdi, Offenbach, Monteverdi, and Mozart.

Jaoui (with her costar Bacri) won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes. With great acting, direction, music and script, this movie is not to be missed!

The film begins with a character speaking on her cellphone but unable to be heard because the taxi driver is playing his radio at such a loud volume -- which is a fitting preface to the rest of the film, in which characters try desperately not only to be seen (as in the title, translated only approximately from the French "Comme Une Image"), but to be heard. At the heart of the story is a daughter's inability to be heard, quite literally, by her father -- who will rarely acknowledge his daughter and refuses to listen to his daughter's cassette of her singing classical music. Aside from the main father/daughter relationship, the film is full of types that are at once fresh and recognizable (the unctuous friend of the celebrity, the slightly defeated wife of an author, who has subsumed her own passions for music to his passion to be a famous author). This will come as no surprise to those familiar with Jaoui's other work. Though not groundbreaking cinema, Look At Me is two hours very well spent in a theater.

20 year-old Lolita (Marilou Berry) aspires to be a singer.

More than this, she desperately wants attention - any attention - from her father Étienne (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a self-absorbed novelist whose neglect of his daughter and rudeness to those around him borders on the cruel.

Overweight and lacking in self-confidence, Marilou isn't helped by her assumption that those who befriend her view her only as a route to her famous and successful father.

This certainly seems true of Lolita's singing teacher Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui), whose husband Pierre (Laurent Grévill) is an aspiring writer himself.

And although Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza), whom Lolita meets by chance, seems genuine in his intentions, Lolita's fragile self-esteem and obsession with her father seem destined to thwart any future they might have.

Emotionally damaged, self-serving or merely flawed, this ensemble of eminently believable characters is superbly played under Agnès Jaoui's fluid direction.

Add in an intelligent and witty screenplay (co-written by Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri) and you have a poignant yet subtly comical film that goes to the heart of the issue of fame and the affect on those in and around its spotlight.

If this were Hollywood, you might expect a sugar-coated resolution to the relationship difficulties portrayed.

Here, the characters remain true to themselves and the integrity of the film.

© Copyright Diana Betts / Film247.net 2004

The breath of fresh air - refined, funny, ironic, in the best traditions of Chekhov's plays, this movie is a triple triumph for its writer/director/star Agnes Jaoui. "Look at me" is the story of 20 years old Lolita (rarely a name mismatches a girl so much. Lolita is a pudgy young woman with a very low self-esteem even though she's got a beautiful voice and passion for singing) who desperately craves her father's attention. Ironically, her father, one of the most famous writers in France, known for his deep, observant and subtle novels is an arrogant, self-centered, and self-involved man who hardly acknowledges Lolita - just to criticize her. He never finds time to listen to the tape Lolita made especially for him in hope to get his interest and approval. The beauty of the script and the movie is that Agnes Jaoui does not use only black or white colors to paint her characters. They turn with their different facets to the viewers and the film itself is a precious gem. The acting is superb by everyone. As a bonus treat, we will hear some of the most beautiful music every written, including the pieces by Monteverdi and Handel.

9/10

COMME UNE IMAGE (LOOK AT ME) is a tough little film that practically defies the viewer to love it. Rated as a comedy, it has few chuckles of the usual kind, but the smart tidy script delivers more of the Reformation-type comedy - wit with a bite. Writer/director and star Agnès Jaoui (her co-author is her ex-husband Jean-Pierre Bacri who also stars) is obviously an intelligent, observant, caustic chronicler of contemporary French society who dotes on celebrities at the expense of their own self-respect. Not a single character in this film is likable, but each one is fascinatingly interesting and a bit warped. Their interaction provides the venom that in Jaoui's hands raises the bar on the range of comedy.

Étienne Cassard (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a famous writer whose latest novel has been 'transformed' into a schmaltzy film about which he is loathsomely embarrassed. He is caustic, acerbic, and emotionally negligent of both his grown obese daughter Lolita (Marilou Berry), who devotes her resentful life in an attempt to being a famous concert singer, and to his new wife Karine (Virginie Desarnauts) and little daughter. Lolita's music coach is Sylvia (Agnès Jaoui) whose demands on her students reflect her frustrated life being married to an unknown author Pierre (Laurent Grévill). Odd paths cross and it is through Lolita's influence as the daughter of a famous writer Étienne that Sylvia arranges for Pierre to join forces with Étienne and gain acceptance and popularity, but the consequences include Sylvia's increased tutelage for Lolita and her group of fellow madrigal singers.

Lolita comes the closest to being a character about whom we care. She is distraught about her weight, her distant father, her stepmother and stepsister, her inability to gain the affection for the boy of her dreams, her struggle to become a significant performer - all of which prevents her from recognizing the man who could salvage it all - Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza) who literally falls at her feet! All of these characters interact in complex and at times trying ways, ever cognizant of the 'authority of celebrity' and the results of these engagements form the body of the film. The acting is on a high level, the dialogue is crisp and smart, and the musical background for this mélange is a gorgeous mixture of classical music ranging from Buxtehude through Schubert ('An die Musik' plays a big role!) and many others. This 'comedy' is more intellectual than entertaining, but if wit and elegance of acting brings you joy, then this is a film to see. In French with subtitles at a long 2 hours! Grady Harp