Cesar & Rosalie

French filmmaker Claude Sautet's sixth feature, the title refers to an unmarried couple, César (Montand) is a successful scrap merchant and Rosalie (Schneider), a divorcée who maintains an amicable relation with her ex, Antoine (Orsini), a painter. But the unbidden return of David (Frey), Rosalie's first love, casts a shadow in the status quo, inaugurated by a foolhardy competition of speed.

Rosalie becomes oscillating between César and David, a quintessential dilemma of choosing between the one she loves the most and the one loves her the most, any inconspicuous outward sign can alter her inner decision in a trice, and through the portrayal of a magnificent Romy Schneider, viewers is well-disposed to forgive Rosalie's caprice, being a beautiful woman, her trumping card is her absolute freedom, refusing to be mired down in any insalubrious compromise, whether when she is fed up with César's vulgarity and petty maneuver or the time she finds herself marginalized in their ménage-à-trois tryout.

David and Rosalie are on the same frequency, they understand each other's feelings, and their rapport has a pure and consonant quality that everyone hanks after with his/her partner, but on the other hand, Rosalie and César's relation is more prosaic and realistic, because of the money factor, an amour-fou César is very much disposed to splurge on all his money just to please her, to buy a painting from Antoine, to recompense the damage he has wreaked on David's studio (incidentally, David is a graphic artist), to buy back Rosalie's family holiday house on the island of Noirmoutier, those costly gestures irrefutably soften Rosalie's resolution, hardly can any woman resist a man's testament of love like that, not to mention Yves Montand imparts eloquent panache into César's almost innocuous single-mindedness, and even evokes an air of sympathy in the long run in spite of his unbearable machismo

David is the more ambiguous type, he loves Rosalie but not necessarily wants her, Sami Frey's well-bouffant handsomeness makes him fittingly inscrutable but in fact, he is not dissimilar to Rosalie, has his own volition cannot be violated. To set the film apart from other crops dealing with the love-triangle quagmire, Sautet and his co-scriptwriters go out on a limb to envision a scenario where an equilibrium between the nouveau riche and the artist is miraculously established in the third act (which, ill-fatedly, received a rushed collection of montages in company with a voiceover from Michel Piccoli), contradicts any malignant foreknowledge in terms of its ultimate fallout. Exuberantly tarted up by its retro-flair and throbbing dynamism, plus a beneficent coda, CESAR AND ROSALIE bewitchingly contends against the volatile drama in its center but also plays up a liberal-minded homeostasis, which archly transcends our insularity concerning gender roles and delivers us from the usual deluge of hokum, that is a real blessing.

Yet another object lesson in how to do relationships. Why is it the French find it so effortless to explore the Human Condition As Entertainment. Why is it they can deal so facilely with pain and heartbreak and still make us smile. Okay, it helps if you have a great leading man, a beautiful leading lady, plus a great writer and a great director but that's still not quite enough and what you really need is something in the water. Jean-Loup Dabadie is still under-appreciated as the multi-talent he is. He thinks nothing of adapting Foreign plays into French (Bill Gibson's 'Two For The See-Saw' became 'Deux pour la balancoir' at Dabadie's hand and was a great hit at the Theatre Montparnasse three or four seasons ago) turning out screenplays like this one and even writing lyrics (he wrote 'Valentin' for Montand's son and in so doing gave Montand a late hit). Here he contributes a virtually perfect screenplay on our old friend the Eternal Triangle theme. This film is so perfect that you get the feeling that on the first day of shooting the Good Fairy turned up on the set and waved her Magic wand blessing the entire project. Love, Desire, Pain, Laughter, if you don't get enough of those at home pull up a chair, slip in the DVD/video and sup your fill. You won't regret a moment of it.

I saw "Cesar and Rosalie" at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. I had only seen Claude Sautet's later movies (which I loved), and was unsure what to expect. The cinema was packed full of people, and some of the older members of the audience were laughing out loud almost immediately at Yves Montand's antics. I was a bit more restrained. But it didn't take long for me to find myself laughing as well. And not only me; it seemed like everyone there was in good spirits, young and old alike. Yves Montand's acting was incredible, Romy Schneider is terribly desirable, and the film just floated along. Definitely worth seeing, both if you're a Claude Sautet fan or if you want a charming movie about the interesting relationship which develops between the movie's three protagonists.

"Cesar et Rosalie" is about a love triangle between Rosalie (Romy Schneider), Cesar (Yves Montand) and David (Sami Frey). Claude Sautet would revisit the theme of a love triangle in his later film "Un coeur en hiver" (1992). In this review I will compare these two films.

Lets start with a comparison of the two men. In "Un coeur en hiver" the difference was introvert versus extrovert. We see the same difference in "Cesare et Rosalie", Cesar being the extravert one and David the introvert. This distinction is in "Cesar et Rosalie" however of secondary importance. More important is that Cesar is the businessman and David is the creative artist. If the link between the two distinctions is logical is for everyone to decide. I would rather expect that the creative one would also be extravert and the other way round.

The role of the woman is very different between the two films. In "Un coeur en hiver" Camille (Emmanuelle Beart) has a clear preference for one of the men. In "Cesar et Rosalie" Rosalie cannot choose. She likes / loves both of them. Her perfect lover would be the combination of Cesar and David.

The most surprising element of the film is the effect the behaviour of the woman has on the realtionship between the men. In "Un coeur en hiver" the love triangle creates tension between the two friends. Also in "Cesar et Rosalie" the two men (and especially Cesar) see the other one initially as an opponent. When they realise that Rosalie is never gonna choose between them a friendship gradually emerses.

"Cesar et Rosalie" is extremely well acted, at least by Yves Montand and Romy Schneider. Sami Frey remains somewhat behind. His introverted character maybe difficult to play, but in some scenes David seemed a fassion doll to me.

In love Rosalie is a very independent woman. When it comes to housekeeping however we see how much the genderroles have changed since the 70's. When Cesar and his friends are having a poker evening Rosalie becomes the waitress and when David and his colleagues are working Rosalie becomes the coffee lady. In both instances without a sign of protest.

I was amazed from this film! Not only because I usually like Yves Montand and Romy Schneider, but because above all this is a film about human feelings and reactions.

Claude Sautet's works are not intellectual movies, but they have the quality of showing people in real life, with their strength and their weakness, we can find people who laugh and cry. They are films about life, there isn't necessarily an happy ending. (In Hollywood they're not able to talk to us about REAL persons.) Simple, isn't it? A director normally shows life, you may say. But in reality I don't think it's so easy. The risk is to talk about people with exaggerations and melodramatic elements. In movies like "César et Rosalie" we find common situations, people with whom we can identify and share feelings.

Here we have a woman who can't choose between two men... (Ingmar Bergman has another approach, in choosing psychological and darker aspects of people. It's another valid method.) I chose to comment this film because it's an example of intimate cinema, a way of telling stories which talk to hearts.