Um spoilers coming, but the short take : honestly I'd skip this film.
If this were a silent film, maybe the affair the wife partakes in would be seen as the one with trace elements of joy. Of course in the film even with the sound on, theirs is nearly silent, as her lover rarely speaks. And perhaps that is the key to a successful union.
Strange film, strange in that it looks like a film from 40 years ago (I assume intentional; and no, not just the black and white footage). Strange as it's a French film with a scolding take on infidelity, which I thought from other such films was seen like baguettes, omnipresent and at least tasty for a little bit?
Don't get me wrong, I would welcome a message reinforcing matrimony, but aside from the wife's dedication to the husband's art, the relationship at the heart of this film has very little actual heart to it. Perhaps that scene with the landlord intends to indict poverty as a threat to their bliss, but there is zero rallying together against that.
I walk away at the end as if I'd spent an evening with two friends whom I cannot help but sense should not be together. Maybe it is just me, but then does the subplot of the deluded resistance hero set us up to question the happy reunion at the end.
Maybe too much verite ruins the recipe of love, I'd really rather not feel that. As complex as relationships are, as thread-bare as they can get, I feel like a strand of hope somehow is woven between partners.
If this were a silent film, maybe the affair the wife partakes in would be seen as the one with trace elements of joy. Of course in the film even with the sound on, theirs is nearly silent, as her lover rarely speaks. And perhaps that is the key to a successful union.
Strange film, strange in that it looks like a film from 40 years ago (I assume intentional; and no, not just the black and white footage). Strange as it's a French film with a scolding take on infidelity, which I thought from other such films was seen like baguettes, omnipresent and at least tasty for a little bit?
Don't get me wrong, I would welcome a message reinforcing matrimony, but aside from the wife's dedication to the husband's art, the relationship at the heart of this film has very little actual heart to it. Perhaps that scene with the landlord intends to indict poverty as a threat to their bliss, but there is zero rallying together against that.
I walk away at the end as if I'd spent an evening with two friends whom I cannot help but sense should not be together. Maybe it is just me, but then does the subplot of the deluded resistance hero set us up to question the happy reunion at the end.
Maybe too much verite ruins the recipe of love, I'd really rather not feel that. As complex as relationships are, as thread-bare as they can get, I feel like a strand of hope somehow is woven between partners.