Ne fais pas ça ! (2004) - film review

After a violent row, Nicole walks out on her boyfriend Joel and returns to live with her parents, Francis and Edith, taking her infant son with her.  Unable to accept that their relationship is over, Joel continues to harangue Nicole, but she is no hurry to return to him.  This domestic crisis has unexpected consequences and begins to unsettle the apparently tranquillity of Nicole’s parents.  For the past few years, Edith has been having an affair with another man, something that Francis has been unable to deal with – until now…

Ne fais pas ça is the third film from the greatly respected Swiss theatre director Luc Bondy (his previous two films being made in Germany).  It is one of those uncompromising French realist dramas which has much in the way of technical and artistic merit but which, from the point of view of characterisation and narrative, feels disappointingly empty.  Watching the film is a bit like spending a dull solitary evening in a motorway service station – stark, atmospheric, offering the occasional insight into the human condition, but overall pretty grim.

For a while, the unremittingly sombre mood of the film and the disjointed editing serves the film well, emphasising the dark undercurrents that threaten to engulf all of the characters involved in the drama. But after a while this heavy stylisation becomes monotonous and quickly stifles the storyline, making it hard for an audience to sustain any real emotional attachment with the characters or their situation.  This is a pity because the film boasts some very creditable performances from an excellent cast, and the cinematography, whilst marred somewhat by the jarring editing, has a haunting poetic quality that is, at times, extraordinarily beautiful.

© James Travers 2007

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