User reviews

O-la-la! Only French filmmakers can do that! A film about a perfectly normal extramarital love affair that doesn't just happen in our favorite MegaCity Paris of all time!

Sandrine KIBERLAIN and Vincent MACAIGNE play a middle-aged romantic couple who once again nibble on the forbidden fruits of lust. They live out their dreams and needs charmingly and directly, trained in the classics of Eric ROHMER and Woody ALLEN. Until, yes, until the duo makes their big dream of a threesome come true...

Charming and funny, tres francais! Such films are not to everyone's taste, but it's nice that they exist!

"That said, it is Macaigne who hijacks the narrative in mid stream and profusely piques audience's curiosity and investment. His Simon is a cross section of today's mythopoetic man, rational, sensitive, bristling with cute foibles that can harm no one but embarrass himself, and Macaigne is a ball of neurosis, a windbag without pretension, hopelessly self-conscious of his gaucheness, yet he soldiers on with heartfelt effusions about true feelings and confusions. At the end of the day, the story returns to where it starts, like a full circle. During another chance meeting, Simon nerves himself up to ask Charlotte to be his lover again, plus ça change, but one must hand it to him for his temerity and perseverance, even Charlotte seems impressed. Mouret's open-handed ending gladsomely suggests it might not be the last time they see each other."

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The lead actress, the lighting, and the locations are the memorable parts of _Diary of a Fleeting Affair_. Don't let the first two night scenes fool you.

Afterwards it is all daylight. Charlotte's apartment, a hotel room for afternoon trysts, and museum interiors all seem to have immaculate white walls (and bedsheets and pillows), decorated with Matisse and modern art. The outdoor scenes are all sunny, with verdant scrubs backlit by the sun so they seem translucent with brightness. (I bet they did some post processing to enhance the green.) An early museum/installation scene, with paintings rendered incandescent by LEDs underneath, set the tone. Charlotte insists that all these are part of "nature"; humans, machines, trees, buildings, everything naturally belongs together. Her unique philosophy stands out in a film and a screenplay notable for their artificiality.

The frequent title cards and the tour of tony Paris landmarks (not the vulgar, too-famous ones), the light tone, and long conversations scream Eric Rohmer. But Rohmer stopped making feature films set in modern France in the last decade of his life, 25 years ago. He probably realized that his cinematic universe no longer represented the multi-ethnic, rap-music-heavy world out there. _Diary of a Fleeting Affair_ operates by cutting off all peripheral vision, eliding the wife and children of the adulterous husband as well as almost all of modern Parisian life. (Where are Charlotte's friends?) The two lead characters dominate the 2.35:1 widescreen frame after frame. And when they watch Bergman's _Scene of a Marriage_ in a theater, or visit a would-be sexual partner in an architectural marvel even more stunning than Charlotte's apartment -- maybe it is Woody Allen at his worst director Emmanuel Mouret is emulating after all.

The film is saved by the sublime Sandrine Kiberlain, who literally shines like a Goddess every scene, indoor or out. There are more lines on her face now, but when she pull her hair into a pony-tail I swear she looks exactly the same as she did in _Tout va bien, on s'en va_ 20 years ago.

Her persona (reflected in her dialogue, expressions, gait) is just as dazzling.

Charlotte is so "together," holistic.

Green is her color but there is no trace of jealousy or drama-queen about her. Simon (Vincent Macaigne), the director's stand-in, is shyer, shorter, less comfortable in his own skin, and far more compartmentalized. By being too passive, by never raising his voice, he loses her in the end, as already foretold in the film's title.

For a few moments, when the camera pointedly zooms in on Charlotte and Simon separately, you wonder if they will achieve a deeper, lasting connection, if the director has something special up his sleeve.

But they don't, and he doesn't.

Unbelievably it is a movie shot according to a diary with different times and dates recorded and also shown on the screenplay. The movie exists of solely dialogues between the two lovers in changing settings and scenes. Each scene is not long, so in the end it is an accumulation of different places and circumstances the viewer will become a witness of. However the settings and scenes are nice and beautiful, the two main actors are fitting them in a puristic way. Except from the dialogues nothing much more is happening and those longlasting and non-stopping dialogues become monotone, might also be the voice of the translators as I have seen the movie in German. The emotions and feelings merely got expressed strongly, so the viewer can feel acquainted to the actors. The content of the dialogues are in detail and both express their thoughts and wishes bluntly and without much emotional expression, neither through their faces or gesture. So the movie could also be a podcast to be heard by the audience, the result would nearly be the same.