UNDER THE SAND
by Mark Netter

It is hard to write about François Ozon's Under the Sand without either giving too much away or failing to impart how enthralling a film it is. It's the kind of movie I am a sucker for: psychological point of view, riveting female protagonist thrust suddenly into the jackpot situation, flashes of social satire and a hauntingly bottomless pit of ambiguity.

It takes what could be, at first glance, a miniaturist subject choice - a woman whose husband appears to have been drowned refuses to accept his death - and creates a deeply resonant world of loss, denial and, ultimately, dissatisfaction. To top it off, for those of us who fell for her way back when with The Verdict (or before), this is the Charlotte Rampling movie we've been waiting for. And she performs most of it in flawless, exquisite French.

The set-up is simple. A sophisticated bourgeois couple in their mid-50's drive to their summer vacation home. Their behavior seems comfortably ritualistic - taking the cover off the couch together, eating a home-cooked meal, joking about the weakness of the wine, going to sleep. The next day they hit the beach. The husband rubs suntan lotion on his wife's back, gazes out at the water, tells her he is going for a swim. After a little while, to the simple and ominous soundtrack of the relentlessly pulsing waves, she lifts her head from her towel and realizes she cannot see her husband anywhere - not on the sand, not in the water. It is about ten minutes in, and the movie springs its elegant trap on the viewer, emphasized by something that Ozon does with the camera.

Up to now all of the shots have been static, generally long shots at a safe distance. The first memorable close-up is of the husband, Jean (Bruno Cremer, heavyset and gray-haired) looking out at the water, an ambiguous expression that poses a question we come back to later in the film - was he just checking out the surf, or was it something more? But when Marie (Rampling) gets up from her towel, shields her eyes and stares out searching the ocean, the camera does its first and most critical move, from one side of her, around her back, to the reverse profile. It is pure and economical, with not much in front of the camera besides Rampling and the water, and it feels masterful. Within the next five minutes of screen time it becomes clear that Jean is not coming back.

A more typical treatment of this life change would likely be an emotionally drawn-out portrait of step-by-step regeneration. The five stages of death - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. A woman who rejoins the world, eventually finding, perhaps, the right man, or right woman, or maybe learning to be happy with herself, no longer leaning on a husband of 34 years or any other emotional crutch. But in Under the Sand Marie doesn't get much further than denial, and when she refers to her husband in the present tense, the fallen faces of her friends assure us that we have heard correctly. She is expecting him any minute now.

What ensues is a fascinating psychological portrait of a strong woman who may be losing her mind. We continually look for clues as to whether she really understands that her husband is gone or is just being incredibly hopeful. We wonder whether she is actually being heroic in her devotion, or if her childless marriage had grown moribund. It becomes unclear whether her husband drowned intentionally or not (the film references Virginia Woolf's The Waves, beautifully read by Rampling in the English class she teaches, as well as that author's notorious suicide by drowning), or if he simply decided to run away. When a suitor comes to call, we are on the edge of our seats over whether this relationship can succeed in the shadow of Marie's marriage and immeasurable devotion to Jean.

This is an adult film in the truest sense of the word. The more one has experienced of life, I expect, the more one will read into the subtle clues as to Marie's relationship with Jean, and the more one might comprehend her pain. The movie makes use of a psychological surrealism that could easily have fallen into cliché. Again, without giving too much away, it does with straight cuts what lesser filmmakers do (less convincingly) with effects, at one point providing a hypnotically realized sexual fantasy for Marie.

When Under the Sand reaches its final shot the strategy becomes completely clear, in an ultimate metaphor and mystery that raises the film to its highest level of interest. According to an interview with Rampling, the film production went on hiatus after shooting the first (disappearance) sequence so that the footage could be studied and the rest of the script written. It appears a particularly well-suited strategy for this story, as one of the key stylistic touches of the film is the ambiguity of duration. When Marie lifts her head on the beach, we are unsure whether what we are seeing is in real time, only a moment or two after her husband has left, or if she has been napping for, say, an hour. Later on, when she is back in the city, we are unsure how much time has passed, in terms of months, since the disappearance on the beach. One could say the film never loses the sense of "vacation time," that untethered tempo of lying in the sun, away from clocks and calendars; and this contributes heavily to the subtly dreamy state of the movie.

Comparisons to recent films spring to mind. Like Memento, it deals with the inability of the mind to go beyond a certain point, a certain psychological arrest, but it makes Memento seem like science fiction, and underscores the arcane, intellectualized nature of whatever that otherwise accomplished film was trying to say. Like With a Friend Like Harry it is a stylish French film, with affinities to Hitchcock, utilizing a generally locked down, beautifully lit, "master shot" style. It plumbs miles deeper than that film, though, with no glibness or far-fetched plotting. In some ways it shares a sensibility with my favorite movie of 1999, Croupier, another stylish picture where no really good question gets completely closed, no matter how many good choices are offered.

I have not seen Ozon's earlier films, but from the trailers available on the net, I have to say I do not have any particular desire to. From what I can tell, he seems to have come of age with this one. However, this is one of those movies that feels like a total collaboration between director and star, where you would be hard pressed to assign auteurship (at least totally) to the guy behind the camera. Charlotte Rampling is simply stunning. She is, as always, terrific to look at, with those cheekbones to die for and a beautiful 54 year-old body. More than that, she is in almost every shot and holds the eye in the iron grip of her precise and varied choices. The subtle changes in Marie, the hidden strength, the unnerving bluntness, the moments of fragility, the astonishingly unbreakable spine (which is, indeed, the subject matter of the movie), all combine to give us as rich a character as we have seen onscreen in a long time. Rampling reportedly eschews plastic surgery and instead uses her age to profound effect, fascinating to watch when she removes her make-up in the mirror, revealing her true face.

Although she has continued to act in features since the 1960s, the most famous role in Charlotte Rampling's career has generally been 1974's The Night Porter. That's all changed now. Under the Sand is career-high work, and no matter how many people ultimately see it in the States, Rampling will be remembered for it. Maybe there's a better acting job to be displayed in some other feature between now and 2002, but I would wager that if she does not win the Oscar for Best Actress next March, it will not be because she didn't give the best performance - male or female - of the year.

©2001 Mark Netter
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