Amorous
Warfare
by Howard Schumann
Milan Kundera writes: "Human time does not turn in
a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be
happy. Happiness is the longing for repetition." Case in point,
Ryno de Marigny (Fu'ad Ait Aattou), an impoverished but elegantly handsome
young man who is trapped between the aristocratic world to which he
aspires, and an obsessive bond with a defiantly independent mistress,
the boldly seductive Vellini (Asia Argento), an older but dazzling Spanish
woman said to be born of an Italian noblewoman and a bullfighter. Adapted
from the 19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse by
Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, Catherine Breillat’s
beautiful and elegant The Last Mistress challenges
the patriarchal assumptions of the age by depicting a 36-year old woman’s
right to fully express her sexual desires even if it is means flaunting
society’s conventions and Christian misogynist teachings.
Set in
Paris in 1835, complete with elaborate period costumes and sumptuously
decorated drawing rooms, the film opens with the gossip between two
aging aristocrats, the Vicomte de Prony (Michael Lonsdale) and his wife,
the Countess d'Artelles (Yolande Moreau) about the ten-year affair between
de Marigny and Vellini and the young man’s impending marriage
to the wealthy Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida). Hermangarde’s grandmother
La marquise de Flers, excellently played by the 80-year-old French writer
Claude Sarrate, is an open-minded and rational individual who claims
to be a woman of the 18th century. Worried that Ryno will not be able
to get over his passion for his fiery Spanish mistress, de Flers listens
attentively as Ryno relates to her the details of his long relationship,
an affair that he says has now come to an end, telling her that “You
don’t betray a new love with an old mistress.”
In flashback,
Ryno relates how he was overcome by Vellini’s wild beauty after
they were introduced at a party ten years before. Vellini, then married
to a wealthy but dull Englishman, reacts negatively, however, when she
overhears Ryno call her an ugly mutt and the young man is forced to
vigorously pursue her despite her strong objections, forcing her to
kiss him while the two are out riding. Her horrified husband witnesses
the act and challenges Ryno to a duel the next morning. After deliberately
missing his first shot, Ryno is shot in the chest, a wound from which
he will take months to recover. The incident, however, triggers Vellini’s
awareness of her love for Ryno, exotically announced by her sucking
the blood from the gaping hole in his chest.
De Flers
presses Ryno for the details of their life together during the past
ten years, but the dramatic story is better left for the viewer to discover.
When the film returns to present time, de Marigny and Hermangarde are
married and ostensibly in love, yet he struggles to keep his word to
her grandmother by moving away from the temptations of Paris to a remote
seacoast. The cigar-smoking temptress, however, also loves the fresh
sea air and the stage is set for the film’s final act.
The
Last Mistress is an outstanding work of art that is strengthened
immeasurably by striking performances by Argento and first-time actor
Aattou. Argento fully captures Vellini’s sexual assertiveness
but tempers her incendiary disposition with naturalism and a tenderness
that makes us care about her fate. 
Aattou,
discovered by Breillat in a crowded café, is almost feminine
in appearance, with overly thick lips and sensitive eyes, yet he brings
a masculine determination to the role that makes him completely convincing.
In this story, love becomes a contest of wills, a power struggle between
two people whose relationship consists of a tug of war not only between
domination and submission but between 18th and 19th century social codes.
That Breillat makes the ride so entrancing is a tribute to her enormous
talent.
*****
The
novels of Balzac concern themselves with the corrupting influence of
society’s illusions and express disdain for the shallow games
people play. This theme is especially present in his short story “Don’t
Touch the Axe,” later titled “La Duchesse de Langeais”
after it was incorporated into his larger work known as “La Comedie
Humaine.” This story that casts aspersions on the artificiality
of French high society in the early 1800s and the stilted rules that
govern their affairs has now been brought to the screen by 80-year-old
French auteur Jacques Rivette. Originally planned by Max Ophuls in 1948
as a collaboration of the talents of Greta Garbo and James Mason, The
Duchess of Langeais is a period piece that faithfully
follows Balzac’s text yet contains touches of wry humor in a way
that Balzac probably did not envision.
Slow paced
and exquisitely detailed, the film opens in a convent on the Spanish
isle of Majorca. Armand de Montriveau, a general and a war hero in Napolenon’s
army, is played by Guilliame Depardieu, son of the great French actor
Gerard Depardieu. Armand has found his lover, Antoinette (Jeanne Balibar),
after a five year search and is granted one interview with the now Carmelite
nun. Interrupted by intertitles that indicate a character’s internal
state or the passage of time, the story flashes back five years to tell
the tale of the thwarted lovers and their sexless passion. At a social
event, Montriveau asks for an introduction to the stately Duchess of
Langeais, a scion of a highly placed family, whom he views across the
next room. It is apparent from the outset that the two live in different
worlds. The Duchess exists in a society of dances and balls where everything
revolves around manners, while Montriveau is a soldier who is awkward
and unrefined.
She is married
but her husband is not seen, allowing Montriveau the opening to court
her with stories of his desert escapades. The tales become extended
over several nights as the Duchess fakes illness and disinterest, and
his storytelling becomes only an excuse for their continued meetings.
Balibar is mesmerizing as she draws her lover close then pushes him
away, until their romance becomes little more than a tug of war with
intricate battle plans laid on both sides. Although Armand claims to
be desperately in love, he is a passsive suitor, devoted to satisfying
her whims but not his desire. When he finally becomes the pursued rather
than the pursuer, the table is set for emotional distress and increased
psychological warfare. In the film’s most dramatic moment, Montriveau
stages a kidnapping that is intended to impress Antoinette with his
intractable frustration but comes off merely as a means of convincing
himself.
Rivette is
a careful observer as he watches the two warriors thrust and parry,
offering a view of love as a tool of power. The tension is played out
for such a long time that irritation and boredom eventually sets in,
but is held in check by the film’s elegance and delicate physical
beauty. With a feeling of unreality, the flooboards creak as the characters
pass over them, lost in their own world, engaged in their rituals as
if sleepwalking through a museum. Like a stately painting, The Duchess
of Langeais is more to be admired than loved, and I was rarely
moved, yet days later I find that the film’s strange, sad, haunting
quality has returned over and over to memory like a sly obsession that
has insinuated itself into my mind and refuses to let go.
©2008 Howard Schumann
CineScene
