Encontro em Bray

This is a film of the novella by French author Julien Gracq entitled LE ROI COPHETUA, the English title of which is KING COPHETUA. The Belgian director André Delvaux worked closely with Julien Gracq to find mutually agreed ways to expand the story so that it would become cinematically possible, as the novella itself is essentially unfilmable. Delvaux loved making films of unfilmable books, as he often said, but this was the only one by Gracq which he attempted. (One novel by Gracq has been filmed, UN BALCON EN FORET (1978), and his only play, LE ROI PECHEUR, was filmed in Italian for Italian television in 1996, but neither of these films is available on DVD or video or has been reviewed for IMDb.) The reason why this film is called APPOINTMENT IN BRAY on IMDb is that its French title is RENDEZ-VOUS À BRAY. The Bray referred to is not Bray near Windsor in England, former home of Bray Film Studios, but a fictional village, Braye-la Foret, near Paris (the train station sign in the film adds an 'e' on the end of Bray, which the title of the film omits.) There is a real Bray in France named Bray-sur-Somme, but it is no connection with this story. This film when sold on DVD separately in France has no English subtitles, and the only way to get it with subtitles is to purchase the 7-DVD Collection of Delvaux's films, where all the material is subtitled. The DVD of this film has fascinating 'extras' including a joint interview of Delvaux and the film's female star, Anna Karina. In that remarkable interview, the two seem to be in love and in the middle of an affair (perhaps I am wrong, as Karina was married to Pierre Fabre at that time), and Karina is so charming, kittenish, naïve and like a giggling schoolgirl, that it is quite a revelation. (Gracq is not interviewed, but he was far too shy and reclusive for such a thing.) As for the film itself, it is a marvellously evocative story set in 1917, with flashbacks added (for the purposes of the film, not being present in the novella) to 1914. I have read the novella, which is haunting, brooding and brilliant in its descriptive power. It is impossible to convey all of that in a film, but a considerable amount of it comes through. In the novella, the sound of the guns at the Front is heavily stressed, and we hear that in the film also. The film has much less emphasis on the storm, the rain, the dripping leaves, the roaring treetops, and the eerie silence and darkness. (It is difficult to film darkness unless you want a black screen.) The male lead is played by Matthieu Carrière, who is perfectly cast as the charmingly innocent young man who has been summoned suddenly to Bray by telegram to visit his friend, who then never turns up. Karina is marvellous and does an excellent job in a part with minimal dialogue, where she has to convey much by mysterious silences, the way in which she carries a candelabra in the dark, her enigmatic failure to show emotion, and her sphinx-like refusal to communicate. All of that is fundamental to the story. For such a lively person, Karina must have had to try very hard indeed to suppress her natural vivacity and play the ghostly role of a character who never even gives her name. The film has a dream-like quality and a pervasive air of mystery, and is not only cinematically interesting, but important for those who love French literature.

Interesting and enigmatic film, originating from a short story by Julian Gracq (can't compare because haven't read). This justifies the fact that the plot content is minimal, and the almost hour and a half of film is delayed in a minimalist and ambiguous story, without decorating it with content not directly related to the essential plot, which in any case is never clear and is left to the free interpretation of the viewer.

The protagonist, a brilliant but poor Luxembourgish pianist, in France during the First World War, receives a letter from a friend who is in the front, an aristocratic composer, with whom he collaborated musically and seems to be very attached.

In that letter the composer invites him to his unoccupied mansion in the country, since he is on leave and wants to meet him there.

From the moment the protagonist begins his journey to the meeting, everything seems to be brilliantly orchestrated to influence the protagonist's mood and thoughts, beginning with his initial encounter on the train with an enigmatic woman (is she similar with the woman in the painting which appears afterwards?) and a military man on leave.

But it's when he gets to the mansion that the atmosphere becomes rare. The friend is not there, and in his absence he only finds a beautiful maid, who does not seem very communicative but is very interested in the protagonist staying the night. Obviously, she has received very precise instructions from the absent friend, about the food and drink that she has to serve him, and about how to behave (misterious, romantic, elusive, somewhat tragic); and in the house itself, the protagonist cannot help but paying attention to objects, photographs, scores that make him recall past meetings between friends.

We are drawing several conclusions from these memories: the aristocratic friend is definitely more mundane and practical, and has a relationship with a girl (Bulle Ogier) who, like the protagonist, is clearly of humble origin but far from misterious or sophisticated). This relationship does not seem very serious. The protagonist is, however, an introvert, at times with almost childlike innocence, and not much given to worldly pleasures or fleeting love affairs. In fact, there is a scene in which the friend makes fun of this attitude (his pride, his withdrawal, his lack of interest in women), and another scene in which, quite transparently, he encourages the protagonist to get closer to his girlfriend, proposal by the way rejected. There is even a scene in which the friend's mother, an unfriendly aristocrat who feels somewhat abandoned by her son, reproaches him for furtive encounters in the country mansion (precisely in the mansion where he is now spending the night), encounters that the protagonist categorically denies.

That is why the events on this lonely night begin to be so suspicious, it almost seems that the friend's note was a lure and that the protagonist is being the object of a well-intentioned trap, a setup to create in the refined and romantic protagonist a mood that leads him to surrender himself to the arms of this most beautiful servant, who hardly speaks, who seems totally schooled on what to do, how to behave, who secretly shows her concern, but who insists suspiciously that the protagonist does not leave the house until he is forced to spend the night.

The next day the pianist leaves the house and goes to the station, but a story in the newspaper makes him decide to return home.

The film is worth, above all, for the ambiguous and mysterious atmosphere, for the hypnotic beauty of its quite and delicate images, for the deliberate rhythm of that wandering in that kind of cold, enigmatic and welcoming prison in which the protagonist has been forced to remain. Highly recommended, a small but very remarkable film.

Delvaux was one of those directors who kept on working in his own creative world, seemingly oblivious to the pressures of the commercial world. He got his start by playing the piano for screenings of silent films in Brussels in 1950, just as the hero does here. Then he did TV documentaries before making his first feature, The Man Who Had his Hair Cut Short. Like Un Soir, Un train that preceded it, Rendez-vous a Bray is very lovely to look at (cinematography by the great Ghislain Cloquet) but it unfolds in a sort of glacial calm that leaves me cold.

Because the tone is so restrained, the acting so diminished in expression, the story never really engages the viewer. Mathieu Carriere was never my idea of a romantic lead (he was thinner than David Bowie), and Anna Karina, trying to start her career again after the breakup with Godard, just does the minimum, with no help from Delvaux. There are hints of a Jules et Jim type of triangle, with pixyish Bulle Ogier as the girl who would interrupt the passionate friendship of Carriere and van Hool, but it isn't fully developed. Delvaux is just too fixated on those beautiful interiors, and nothing, not even the carnage of the war--it's 1917--can get him out of them.

André Delvaux depicts a strange world where the frontier between dreams and reality becomes blurred.

A not very accessible auteur,Delvaux is an acquired taste."Un Soir ...Un Train" is one of my all time favorites but "Rendez-Vous à Bray" well...Bulle Ogier and Anna Karina are the kind of French actresses I just cannot stand.I must say that,as Karina has few things to do here,she is quite good.

Delvaux knows how to create a mysterious disturbing atmosphere.Take the scene on the train: the woman's looks are enough to generate a strange feeling.No need to argue about "why ain't you a soldier whereas I'm fighting to put an end to all wars?" .

His technique is now really running well: the flashbacks almost always come from things the hero (Matthieu Carrière)spots in the mansion where he is waiting for a friend.Not that the trick is new: in their 1939 masterpiece,"Le Jour Se Lève" ,Marcel Carné and Jacques Prévert already pioneered the process (the teddy bear notably).But these ceaseless flashbacks - which made "Un Soir Un Train" even more impressive- really mesmerize the viewer who does not know where he stands anymore,in dream or reality ,in an old memory or in a movie...

The movie in the movie was already present in "Un Soir Un Train" : the scene when Montand and his companions enter the odd tiny movie theater and watch a weird film is arguably my favorite in that movie.In "Rendez-Vous à Bray" ,Delvaux uses some Louis Feuillade's footage :"Fantomas " was one of the big blockbusters of the WW1 years in France ;today some critics talk about "Feuillade's brainwashing" .

Delvaux seems to love popular literature :after the show,in the cafe ,Bulle Ogier tells us Souvestre-Allain's hero's tales in lavish detail (the director switches smartly from Sonia Danidov's madness to Karina's wandering in the corridors with skill);in "Un Soir ,un train" there was a short hint at Jean Ray's "Harry Dickson" .

Based on a Julien Gracq short story which I have not read,"Rendez-vous à Bray " is visually a splendor.But whereas "Un Soir Un Train" was really,in its last sequences, very moving ,"Rendez-vous à Bray" hardly touched my imagination the way his former work had done.