33rd Alliance Française French Film Festival 2022 - Janice Tong's 🎥 4th Filmic Postcard LES AMOURS DE ANAÏS/ANAÏS IN LOVE (Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet, 2021

 

Anaïs Demoustier in the title role 

There is much to love about Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s first feature.  It’s intelligent, funny, and above all, charming – in that it oozes  Audrey Hepburnesque or even Jane Fondaesque1960s romantic comedies – think Barefoot in the Park (1967) or Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).  And no, I’ve not forgotten Katie and Hubbell, but The Way We Were (1973) has a undercurrent of existential reality, very à la mode of the New Hollywood in the 70s, that the other two films I mentioned don’t.

 

If you love literature, writing (especially Duras)and films, you will delight in finding references everywhere in the film; little crumbs dropped for those who want to gobble them up; and if you dream about desire and believe that this is the impulse for everything we do (Duras believes this), then you will be ravished in some small way by this film. 

 

There is a lightness to Anaïs Demoustier’s portrayal of the central role, she is carefree and spirited. In the midst of completing her thesis on 17th century descriptions of passion; she is a whirlwind that affects all who crosses her path.  But rather than destruction, she delivers a touch of swoon to those she meets. You may remember Demoustier as the brilliant Alice in Alice and the Mayor (2019), in this film, she has the same allure, though not Alice’s sensibilities or groundedness; you may say Anaïs is the oblique opposite of Alice.

"...Always in motion..."

Does Deleuze's idea of the action-image 'with a purpose' apply here? 

Anaïs is always in motion, the opening shot is of her running, down the street, into the corridor of her apartment, inside her flat and from room to room; she is never on time, nor is she fully in the present, she daydreams and runs away from difficulties, work or processes (she has the same spirit as Holly Golightly). But she is decisive on certain things, especially when she is placed at a crossroads. 

 

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi plays Émilie, an older woman whom Anaïs idolises to begin with; though the enigma of an accomplished woman twenty years older than her fans her desire even before she first ‘saw’ her. In fact, when Anaïs saw a photo of the back of her head, desire was already present, (you can barely glimpse Émilie’s profile in the photo, but a hidden face yields the necessary mystery); “the waiting can be as exquisite as what you’ve been waiting for”, and the unseen promises more in a way than the experience of seeing; or does it?

 

Denis Podalydès is wonderful as the not-so-confident lover
(and husband of Émilie), Daniel

Denis Podalydès and Grégoire Oestermann are woven into the screen with Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands; and Robbe-Grillet and Proust too. The beautiful rendition of Purcell’s Dido’s Lament (Dido and Aeneas, William Christie with Les Arts Florissants, 1995 recording) breaks my heart every time I listen to it…as I imagine Dido climbing up on top of her own funeral pyre; fuels the mood of the film.

  

Les amours d'Anaïs was screened at the 61e La Semaine de la Critique Cannes 2022. In an interview at the time, Bourgeois-Tacquet cited that she drew inspiration from Eric Gautier’s cinematography for the mise-en-scène and tried to emulate the energy and flow of Arnaud Desplechin, Olivier Assayas and Patrice Chéreau’s films.

 

The Alliance Française French Film Festival has completed its season in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Brisbane,Byron Bay and Victor Harbour. It continues in Adelaide to 26th April.