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Clean
2004 Drama
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Summary
For several years, Emily has been in a relationship with Lee Hauser, a forty-something
rock singer who finds it increasingly difficult to get contracts for his work. During
a disastrous promotional tour in Canada, Lee and Emily fall out and Lee ends up killing
himself through a heroin overdose. Having served a prison sentence for illegal
possession of drugs, Emily returns to Paris and sets about rebuilding her life.
Her dearest wish is to be reunited with her young son, Jay, who has been placed in the
custody of Lee’s elderly parents. Making a fresh start proves to be a lot harder
than Emily realised. She has no money, no job, and everyone blames her for Lee’s death.
But she is determined to see it through…
Review
With Clean, a remarkably poignant account of
a woman struggling to repair a life that has been all but ruined by drugs and personal
tragedy, Olivier Assayas confirms himself as one the finest film directors of his generation.
It’s a surprisingly understated film, somewhat more thoughtful and restrained than much
of Assayas’s earlier work. Both the narrative approach and cinematographic technique
are pretty conventional, more or less what you would find in most quality French film
dramas (albeit tainted with Assayas’s customary austere edge), and it is probably this
lack of stylistic artifice that makes the film so engaging. Without the distraction
of overly artistic camerawork or design, the focus stays on lead actress Maggie Cheung
(Assayas’s former wife and star of his earlier film
Irma Vep) for much of the film, showing the
world from her character’s perspective, and allowing the audience to establish a very
close rapport with her.
The film's impact is undeniably driven by Cheung's exceptional performance (probably her best to date) – one that, whilst being very restrained, conveys great emotional force, pathos and a striking sense of realism. The sequences near the end of the film where Emily attempts a faltering reconciliation with her young son have a kind of stark poetry that is rare in cinema nowadays, conveying a very basic humanity, the bond between a mother and her child. This is a beautiful film which explores some universal themes with great compassion and understanding - themes such as redemption, self-belief and the power of love to heal the wounds of the past. © James Travers 2007 Write a review for this film... |
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