Um Quarto na Cidade

A (sentimental, romantic) politics undergirds much of Demy's work, principally through its impact on romantic relationships: the class conflict and military service that cuts across romance rather than the explicit terrain of strikes, revolutionary situations, street fighting. 'Une Chambre', long in the making, differs in that its narrative is explicitly set up around a strike, making this the only Demy film to receive critical attention from Alain Badiou (Badiou thought it a naive romanticisation of the past of the worker's movement, constructed round a simplistic idea of the heroic working class, and an evasion of the compromises and complexities of the Mitterand years). Yet the film is principally a dark melodrama, far grungier, more bitter and less sweet than 'Parapluies'--too dark, in fact, for Legrand to score, and hard to imagine Deneuve, even with the transformation of her image wrought in 'Belle du Jour' in the role played here by Dominique Sanda. Jealousy, betrayal, misogyny, bitterness and police violence win out over the thrills of forbidden, once-in-a-lifetime romance or noble ranks of strikers: they may sing non-stop, but the music's more like recitative than show- or heart-stopping song, the violence and blood more present than the rumour of some distant war. As such, it's unclear where the film stands--a confusion that's a source of fascination and frustration in equal measure.