Il y a longtemps que je t’aime (2008) - film review

For 15 years, Juliette has had nothing to do with her family and has lived apart, a solitary and tortured existence.  On impulse, she finally decides to renew her acquaintance with her sister, Léa, who has made a successful career for herself and has started a family.  The two women find it hard to communicate at first.  Both are burdened with a secret past which one has all but forgotten but which the other can never escape from...

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime marks a promising directorial debut for Philippe Claudel, a successful novelist whose best-known work Les Âmes grises was adapted for cinema in 2005 (with Claudel providing the screenplay).  Claudel’s approach is refreshingly restrained and unfussy, avoiding the stylistic flourishes (excessive camera motion, frenetic editing, etc.) which seem to have become de rigueur, even for a naturalistic character-based drama such as this.   The lack of stylisation and visual gimmickery is a good thing for this kind of film, since it gives the actors more of an opportunity to define and project their characters, making the drama more intimate and the emotions we feel far more real.

Claudel’s pared down approach to storytelling is appealing but it has its limitations.  Flaws in the writing and the performances are far more noticeable when we do not have the modern cinematic devices to distract us, and this is most apparent towards the end of the film.  The film is most effective in its first half, where the brittle relationship between the two sisters, Juliette and Léa, is developed and the past traumas that have divided them for so long are gradually unravelled.  Things take an abrupt turn for the worse at the end of the film when it is revealed that Juliette is not really culpable of her crimes but is merely the victim of an obsessive guilt complex.  Many would consider this a cop out too far.  

It’s a shame that such a thoughtful and intelligent drama should end in the kind of plot contrivance that would be embarrassing even in a television soap opera.  The final plot twist may be infuriating to watch but, in all honesty, it does not greatly diminish the film’s impact or the sincerity with which it is crafted.  Composed with a genuine understanding of the fragility of human relationships, Il y a longtemps que je t’aime manages to be a compelling and moving study of redemption and rebirth - its effect greatly heightened by a performance from Kristin Scott Thomas that is as haunting as it is poignant.

© filmsfrance.com 2010

Sick of empty action movies and adaptations of graphic novels? Here’s a film to test the tear ducts and challenge your ideas of normal life. Director Philippe Claudel’s I’ve loved you for so long (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime) wrestles both heart and head.  Kristin Scott Thomas, who spent her formative years in England, has lived for many years in France and it shows. She plays the lead role of Juliette Fontaine who comes to live with her younger sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) and family after a 15 year absence.

There are dual mysteries. For those who did not know her previously, it’s where she has been. A confession at a dinner party is regarded as a joke because it appears so out of character with this sensitive, sensible woman. For her family, the puzzle is what caused her to do what she did.  This is a sombre, desolate tale. It is as much about her complex relationships as it is the past: her sister, brother-in-law Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) and his father (Jean-Claude Arnaud), their adopted Vietnamese daughters, her demented mother, and her lover Michel (Laurent Grévill). Each presents unique challenges for Juliette who is both alienated and guilt ridden. When she comes to live with Léa, she is completely estranged from them but sees no alternative. She sees herself as beyond redemption.

The cast all give strong performances especially Thomas and Zylberstein. It is slow paced but this suits the nature of this psychological drama. Much of film is bleak and melancholic, even with the positive directions emerging in Juliette’s life. She is not the only one in a severely damaged and depressed state. Juliette encounters tragedy in a friendship with someone whose role is to help her adjust to her new life. Ever so gradually she restores some sense of identity and normality through work, romance and independence. But there is pain in every step.

As the tragic tale unfolds, it is not difficult to guess what happened and what motivated her. More problematic is her family’s acceptance of both her rejection of any help at the time and her refusal to speak about it. It is hard to believe that the circumstances surrounding her actions could be kept secret.  2008 was a good year for French language films. Philippe Claudel’s was one of the best. I’ve loved you for so long does not fit the tag of entertainment so commonly used to categorise cinema these days. Don’t go on a day you’re feeling fragile but do see it if you get the chance.

© Kevin Rennie (Melbourne, Australia)  

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