Boredom

Based on the novel of Alberto Moravia, "L'Ennui" tells us the story of a philosphy teacher (Charles Berling) who, just separated from his wife, meets the young and buxom Cecilia, former model of a painter who died making love to her. As their relationship grows, we fall with Berling into despair (when he is unable to quit her even if he wants to) and even jealousy. The famous scholar cannot find relief in his knowledge, nor in his irritated former wife and is therefore condemned to wander alone, following this woman, directly out from a Renoir painting, he love and despise at the same time and his depiction is really living.

Very French film in which a jaded, self-centred philosophy professor becomes embroiled in a physically consuming, but emotionally vacant, relationship with a blank young girl. Unpleasant, claustrophobic and sharply humorous, it boasts strong performances from all its cast. But eventually the film's focus, as narrow as that of its central character, starts to become a little wearing. Not wholly successful, but interesting nonetheless.

The film got good reviews in the UK when screened on TV, described in the listings as an "erotic, comedy drama...with outstanding performances". Erotic - not for me; comedy - definitely not(dreary and humourless throughout); drama - yes but with minimalist plot and unengaging theme; outstanding performances - both leads failed to provoke much interest in either their character or plight. We all have different tastes and interests but I have to warn you... other than it was another exercise in improving my French, I really felt I had wasted two hours. If you are not enjoying it after half an hour my advice would be give it up - it does not get better.

This is a classic case of great performance, shame about the movie. Sophie Guillemin is quite a revelation - in every sense - without ever appearing to do much or indeed anything. Here she reminded me a lot of Isabelle Huppert in The Lacemaker (only with much more nudity), with much of Huppert's brand of everyday sexuality.

Guillemin's a blank slate of a schoolgirl/model that men in crisis project their fantasies on to. She gives them her body but nothing else, and seems constantly detached and immune to surprise or emotional or intellectual involvement, much to the distress of her latest part-time conquest, recently divorced teacher/author Charles Berling. The downward spiral of obsession that will destroy his life is a given, and that's the problem. The film constantly tries to raise the stakes to surprise us by how much further it will go, but by the last third he's become so intensely irritating in yet another variation of the previous scene - only louder and more desperate - that you lose interest. Had it ended half an hour earlier it might have been more successful, but this seriously outstays its welcome.

Poor movie, but definitely worth a watch for Guillemin.

When you adapt a work by Alberto Moravia to the screen, you know that human detachment, alienation or themes thereof are going to dominate.

That's what happens in 'L'Ennui' -- characters driven by excess, searching for the unsearchable or the unreachable. The ambiguity of the word 'ennui' fits very well: in English translation, the word can mean not only boredom but also human emptiness. This is what I believe director Cedric Kahn was aiming for, and he's certainly on target.

This is a descent into an obsessive abyss by Martin, played by Charles Berling with such frenetic neuroticism that he all but leaps off the screen. He lives and suffers through the lives of others. He meets Cecilia, a 17-year-old artist's model, stunningly portrayed by Sophie Guilleman. Martin asks questions about the artist, who died shortly after an obsessive love affair with Sophie. Despite his extensive intellectual training in philosophy (a Moravia-Kahn 'in-joke' here), Martin cannot fathom the emotional emptiness of Cecilia, who is a character straight out of, well, the existential literature of Moravia and Camus (Cecilia reminded me of the latter's Mersault in 'L'Etranger,' a classic study of human detachment).

Martin asks Cecelia endless questions about emotional matters, but she cannot answer them. She only understands transient forms of pleasure (never 'happiness'), and her laissez-faire attitude drives Martin into increasing levels of madness. He thinks he loves her, but he has no understanding of love at all, and cannot find the centre of Cecilia's amiable indifference. He screams about 'possessing' her, as if she were a commodity. She neither loves nor hates him; she is simply neutral, which Martin cannot grasp.

This is a brilliant work on a difficult subject, although it's perhaps about 20 minutes too long. Slowly and meticulously, Kahn unpeels the layers of the endless human dilemma called love.

Once again, the French have delivered a film that just wouldn't see the light of day in Hollywood. I can hear the producers in LaLaLand now: who wants to pay for a film that focuses on a basic philosophical problem: the nature of human existence? Fortunately, we can still see these kinds of films, but they'll never come from Hollywood.