Brève traversée

These two actors (Sarah Pratt & Gilles Guillain ) previously unknown to me are just brilliant. Occupying the screen for most of the time their film characters are revealed to us through a series of conversations. Casually meeting on an overnight ferry bound for Portsmouth, Thomas a teenager and Alice a married woman exchange shy glances at first as they sit at the same table in the ship's cafeteria.

The feelings between the two grow more intimate as the night wears on. Alice finds Thomas so naive and innocent. He acknowledges he hasn't done so well at school but hopes to become a plastic surgeon because women are so concerned about their appearance and there's money in it. Alice is very critical about men in general claiming they are selfish and only have one thing in mind. She says she has just walked out on her husband.

It is interesting to watch Thomas trying to look and act older and Alice (letting down her hair ) trying to look younger. Alice is in a seductive mood and uses her womanly experience to snare him into her cabin. Shutting out the world they are now free to act without any inhibitions.

All scenes are beautifully handled by the director who is obviously devoted to detail. All scenes are believable. Alice always critical and somewhat cold seems to be constantly in control, while Thomas begins to be carried away by his emotions. To him Alice seems to be more desirable by the minute.

Finally there is the disembarkation scene. You think you know how it will all end, do you? Well think again. Life is never simple. Life can have its disappointments.

It was my intention to record this film for later viewing but I became so absorbed at the beginning I watched it right through. It is so pleasing to find a film that is so rewarding. Highly recommended.

There are plenty of good writers, at least it seems so. But not very many good filmmakers.

Obviously, this is somewhat due to the nature of film-making being a collaborative enterprise that involves large numbers of people. Where it seems to impinge most is in beginnings and endings. Readers need to make only a little adjustment to be coaxed into a different space, and the unwinding or knotting at the end is also easier, though more challenging.

Film requires the viewer to make more severe adjustments in entering the world that's fabricated. And very few seem to have been able to figure out endings that work.

Put this together and you'll see why we have some filmmakers that have great skills at creating "middles" but are disasters elsewhere. Brelliat is one of these, possibly the most fascinating. Set aside that all her films explore the same space. That's not fatal. When she gets us to where she wants, she can often assemble a tableau that is as effective as anything in film.

Very troubling and touching stuff, that. Immediate and emotional. But she takes such a torturous route to set it up and place it in that special zone. Lots of uncinematic talking and preparatory narrative. Then we'll have her sometimes sublime state.

And then without fail, we'll have a messy ending. Not well conceived. So she plays the youth card and does something shocking and sometimes violent. It mars that special space of a thousand desired needlepricks she so carefully laces.

She knows this. So in this movie, a study really, she focuses on the ending. Everything is designed to give her a real ending, one that sets those needles and leaves them in after you leave the theater. Good for her. This and "Sex is Comedy" shows that she is surrounding her own limitations in public essays. Taken together, they're powerful stuff.

The story here is a woman and a boy, and a dance, an episode and then an ending that reveals intentions.

This is hard work all of this. You need to know something of her other work, of her life. And of the bankrupt nature of French film-making right now, and the analogies some make with the impossibilities that real love can exist.

Also some notion of how we build desire in our lives, the immediate part, out of cinematic components to be eaten as it it were a meal.

Yes, it is hard work. And you'll have to live through lots of bad endings. Like life, like love.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

"Brief Crossing" is all about a 30 something woman and a 16 year old boy who meet during a ferry journey across the English channel. As the ferry takes us from La Havre to Portsmouth, the characters meet, shop, drink, dance, have sex, and ultimately part at their destination. Superficially, "Brief Crossing" is not much of a film. It has marginal production value, a cast of two, and a meager story. However, as a relationship film it is finely nuanced with a very natural ebb and flow of conversation, body language, evinced emotion, and human interaction. Not for everyone, this worthy addition to auteur Breillat's resume will be most appreciated by French film devotees. (B-)

I love this film! Brève traversée [Brief Crossing] was part of the Brisbane International Film Festival, I saw 23 films and this was by far my favourite! The story focused around a young (16) boy and a 30 something woman on a ferry. The two meet in the lunch line and for lack of anywhere else to sit, they sit together. A conversation starts up that lasts them hours and away we go. The film follows their discussions & then sexual relationship. Its kind of a Before Sunrise meets The Graduate. I just loved their discussions and the glances the two share - the 2 actors are sensational, they make the film work. One quote I recall (which I rather like) said by the woman 'Alice' talking about how pointless life can be: "The irony is in order to make a living you have to spend time!" ......5 stars!

I've never seen a Catherine Breillat movie until this one was broadcasted. People tend to say that what she makes is pornographic, but it is so much more than that. Even during the sex-scene's there's a lot of talking going on. Sarah Pratt as Alice reminds me of Isabelle Huppert, a bit cold and distant, but she and Gilles Guillain did a great job in acting. Overall a very good movie shot on a low budget!