Entre Nous

I hadn't seen this movie when it opened because I was at a different point in my life and was watching too many women's films in film school. Finally, 37 years later, I decided to give it a chance. I was enraptured by the style of the film, the acting, the flesh and blood characters, the beautiful protagonists. It is somewhat slow but its pace is not the kind of pointless slowness that one would sometimes expect. In other words, the film a story that takes place over 10 years through episodes that rely mostly on dialogue between the characters. Kurys, the director, always makes sure that there's a lot going on in every frame and, if you are a good observer, you will be able to contemplate the meticulous production design and the subtlety of the acting, which is constantly transmitting information about the time, the characters' development and the story. As far as women's films go, this one is not to be missed. Isabelle Huppert was never more enchanting. Super elegant cinematography by Bernard Lutic in Panavision.

I wasn't sure where this movie was going at first, but as it picks up the pace there is little doubt as to whom the nous in the title refers.

When Huppert says "Je tu manque" (pardon my French it is I hope close) "I miss you" she might as well be declaring the love that is boiling out of her. But there is the problem of the spouses to be resolved, and the children. Needless to say all is reconciled and true love triumphs.

I have seen this movie at least three times now and love it more each time. There is a tenderness between most of the characters (one is a lout pure and simple) but the others all strive to reconcile who they are to to events that enfold them. Their struggles hit all of the right notes (with the possible exception of a very steamy sex scene on a train which just doesn't work for me)

It is a tear jerker at times, but a beautiful tear jerker. and so I always did like those forties movies.

The sweetest thing about this film is the portrayal from a daughter's view of her parents' struggles with who they are and their relationships with each other. The ending dedication of the film is quite poignant. This film is a reminder of the ways our lives are thrown together and how that intertwines with the choices we make. This is a bittersweet love story on more than one dimension.

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Michel (Guy Marchand) falls in love with Jewish refuge Lena (Isabelle Huppert) at first sight and offers marriage as a way she can avoid being sent to a German concentration camp. She accepts, and although she doesn't love him, they have two children and are still married when we pick up the action again in Lyons in 1952 when Lena is 29-years-old. There she meets the sophisticated and well-to-do artist Madeleine (Miou-Miou) who awakens her to the drabness of her existence as a housewife with a loutish husband who now runs a gas station. The attraction between Lena and Madeleine is very strong, and very threatening to the men, especially to Michel.

Huppert's poignant and bittersweet portrayal reminds me of her delicate work in Madame Bovary (1991). There is the same listlessness expressed along with a vague desire for something better out of life, and the anticipation of the sadness that we know will come of such desire. Miou-Miou is sharp and cynical with perhaps a streak of the manic-depressive about her. The love they spontaneously feel for one another is real and beautiful and makes us want it to be fulfilled. But Lena holds herself back because of her family, and then it is the men and propriety that get in the way.

Of course this is very French and Lena and Madeleine hold hands and comfort one another while telling each other their innermost secrets including the infidelities of their spouses, etc. (The men have no such communication.) Director Diane Kurys exercises more restraint in showing the physical nature of their mutual attraction than would be displayed today. Lena says to Madeleine at one point, "I want to kiss you," but we do not see them kissing. The most explicit scene sexually is the startling, but delicately expressed, meeting with the soldiers on the train where we discover the full extent of Lena's frustration.

This is not quite a great movie. The pace is a little slow in spots and sometimes the focus is not as sharp as it could be. But it is an extraordinarily honest movie, and I'll take that over sharp technique any day. Huppert is not only at her best here, but her exquisite and subtle beauty is shown to great advantage. Miou-Miou is also very pretty of course--this is the first time I've seen her--so I would say her strength of character is perhaps her strongest suit. This is a human tragedy on a small, intimate scale, one that we can't help but feel could have been averted had those involved understood one another better, had they been a little wiser. We've all been there before and so we can share the sadness and the sense of loss.

This is a very moving film. I think I found it more sad than some of the other reviewers. It's really about the decline of a marriage through the incompatibility of the couple.

The incompatibility is brought home to the woman by her class, education, style, grace and education. (The sophisticated one, played by Miou Miou is just extraordinary acting). In essence, the sophisticated woman causes the central woman (played by Isabelle Huppert) to realize that her husband is a dolt, and that they share far more than she and her husband. The wonderful thing about the movie is that though the husband is a boob, insensitive and sometimes prone to violent anger, there is no doubt that he slaves for his family, is very humble, and deeply loves his wife and his two daughters - no question about it.

We get to see his pain as his wife falls out of love for him, his sometimes violent jealousy of the woman who has made his wife see him differently, and his heartbreak. It's quite profound. Those who say it all ends happily were watching another movie!

I loved the periods, the costumes, the settings - from Paris on Liberation Day through the 1940s and 1950s. Although it's the daughter's story, we see much of how the couple earlier met, married and began their married life. You will love it - it's more fast-paced than many French movies, and wrenching.