Storytelling Sleight-of-Hand
‘Roman de Gare’ makes far better use of narrative trickery than ‘Reprise’
By Andy Klein
Ever since his breakthrough with the international success of A Man and a Woman (1966) stamped him as a “commercial” filmmaker, director Claude Lelouch has (ironically enough) received American distribution no more reliably than Godard, Resnais, and other more “difficult” French contemporaries. His last release, And Now ... Ladies & Gentlemen, was not only delightful; it was one of the most intriguing films of 2003. Still, it caused barely a ripple in its brief art-house run. Now he’s back with Roman de Gare, which is even more delightful and intriguing; one can only hope it finds a receptive audience.
The title is apparently a term for the sort of novel one might buy at a train station right before a long trip – what we might call “airport fiction.” While it can be easily seen as a description of the story elements the film is built from, it also refers to the bestsellers one of its main characters writes. Part of the mystery is: Which character?
The opening sequence shows mystery author Judith Ralitzer (Fanny Ardant) being booked for murder. “Is it my fault my ghostwriter never learned to swim?” she asks.
We quickly flash back to images of a Strange-Looking Man (Dominique Pinon) speeding down a country road. He seems distracted ... perhaps worried? The radio news announces that notorious pedophile/killer George Maury is on the loose. He’s been dubbed the Magician because he uses card tricks to lure potential victims.
Meanwhile, we meet Huguette (Audrey Dana), who is taking her new fiancé, Paul (Cyrille Eldin), to meet her parents at their farm. But the two get into a fight, and Huguette finds herself stranded at a rest stop. Luckily, there is this kindly, if Strange-Looking, man who tries to cheer her up by doing card tricks. He introduces himself as Pierre and insists on giving her a lift.
At this point, Roman de Gare seems like a straight-out thriller. Lelouch has built up a good deal of suspense about “Pierre.” Is he or isn’t he? Will he or won’t he?
In a daring move, the film suddenly swerves into classic farce territory. Huguette has told her parents that she’s bringing Paul to the farm, so she recruits her benefactor to impersonate him for 24 hours. (Just another case of grabbing Peter to play Paul.) Soon we have a dinner table scene with Pierre making up the character of Paul as he goes along, digging himself in deeper each time he says something that contradicts what Huguette’s parents have been told. But, even as we laugh, we’re still worried sick when he goes off on a hike with Huguette’s adolescent daughter.
How does Ralitzer fit in? Huguette is a huge fan, and Pierre, hearing that, tells her that he’s Ralitzer’s ghostwriter ... then tells her he’s just making a joke at her expense. Intercut with these threads is yet another major subplot about a woman trying to get the police to find her missing husband.
Lelouch is, of course, playing us like a magician plays his audience, using cinematic misdirection and our assumptions about narrative grammar to manipulate us into suspicion ... relief ... suspicion ... relief. Is Pierre the Magician? Is he Ralitzer’s ghostwriter? Is he the runaway husband? Is he even named Pierre?
We may further wonder if parts of what we’re seeing are “really” happening or if they’re visualizations of a story imagined by a writer within the story. (Remember: The body of the film is introduced as though it’s Ralitzer’s confession or a flashback.)
In some ways, Lelouch is doing one of the things that usually infuriates me – he’s manipulating us by withholding information in an arbitrary, directorial manner. And yet ... I wasn’t bothered a bit here. He never quite lies to us. He balances the different possibilities so neatly that we know we’re being played. In fact, since there’s a storytelling convention about surprising us by deliberately breaking storytelling conventions, we have counter-suspicions about Pierre from the start: That is, so heavily does Lelouch suggest he is the killer that we immediately suspect he couldn’t be. It would be too easy.
Casting is as important an element as writing and directing, and Pinon’s face automatically triggers long-conditioned assumptions. For those who don’t recognize the name, he made his debut as the punk thug in Diva; it seemed as though his odd face would forever limit him to similar roles. Jean-Pierre
Jeunet turned him into a leading man within the comic-book universe of Delicatessen and has used him brilliantly since, notably in City of Lost Children, where he did a variation of the character he was born to play – Popeye. But here Lelouch turns him into a viable romantic figure in a non-comic-book context.
It helps, of course, that he’s a terrific actor.
He’s matched by Dana; it’s no shock that she was nominated for a César in the Most Promising Newcomer category.
On the festival circuit, Roman de Gare was known as Crossed Tracks, a loose but metaphorically apt translation. The movie is a tightly woven braid of characters, storylines, and levels of reality. It’s also sheer entertainment.
Reprise, a new Norwegian film, is
likewise about writers and likewise plays narrative tricks on us – indeed, some of the very same ones. This debut feature from Danish-born Joachim Trier (reported by some sources to be a cousin or nephew of Lars von), begins with two friends in their early twenties – Erik (Espen Klouman Høiner) and Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) – mailing the manuscripts of their first novels. A narrator then gives us a speedy summary of what will happen ... or, more accurately, what would happen. The voiceover’s use of the subjunctive mood is significant, since the rest of the film doesn’t match up with this initial version.
Flash forward: Erik’s book has been rejected; Phillip’s book has been published and become an instant cult phenomenon. But the winner isn’t always the winner: Erik is still plugging away, while Phillip has a psychotic breakdown, triggered (the doctors say) by his obsessive love for Kari (Viktoria Winge). Since Kari has been instructed to stay away from him, Erik becomes Phillip’s main emotional support. (The rest of their friends are thoroughly irritating louts, though it’s not clear that Trier regards them as such.) Their fortunes rise and fall and almost rise and almost fall, and frankly, by the end, I didn’t much care.
There is something both showy and precious about Reprise. Rather than constituting an overall aesthetic strategy, the opening’s narrative trickery is largely abandoned a third of the way through. On top of that, it feels like self-consciously warmed over Godard, with traces of Run, Lola, Run tossed in. Another Dane, Christoffer Boe, used similar devices much more interestingly in 2003’s Reconstruction.
None of this would matter if we were given some reason to identify with Erik and Phillip. But they’re neither very interesting nor sympathetic. I was left with no desire to encounter them again.
Roman de Gare. Directed by Claude Lelouch. Written by Claude Lelouch and Pierre Uytterhoeven. With Dominique Pinon, Audrey Dana, Fanny Ardant, Michéle Bernier, Zinedine Soualem, and Boris Ventura. Opens Friday at the Landmark West Los Angeles, Laemmle’s Playhouse 7, and Laemmle’s Town Center 5.
Reprise. Directed by Joachim Trier. Written by Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier. With Anders Danielsen Lie, Espen Klouman Høiner, Viktoria Winge, Henrik Elvestad, Christian Rubeck, and Odd-Magnus Williamson. Opens Friday at Laemmle’s Sunset 5.
Published: 05/14/2008
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