|
Credits
|
|
|
Summary
Odile and Camille are two sisters living in Paris. Odile is frustrated in her dull
marriage to Claude, who shows no enthusiasm in her desire to buy a new apartment.
Camille, studying for a doctorate in an arcane subject, suffers from a panic disorder.
The lives of both women are up-ended when three men enter their lives. Nicholas,
an old flame of Odile, returns to Paris to buy an apartment for his family, although he
himself has marital problems. Simon meets and instantly falls in love with Camille,
keeping from her the fact that he is an estate agent who works for the unscrupulous Marc,
who also has designs on Camille...
Review
On connaît la chanson marked Alain Resnais’ triumphal return to mainstream
French cinema in the late 1990s. The film, hugely popular in France, is wedded in
the familiar Resnais themes of time, place and memory, but his approach here is much lighter
and more accessible than in his earlier, more abstract works such as L’année
dernière à Marienbad.
Resnais’ great innovation for this film is to intermittently weave popular French songs from the past fifty or so years into the dialogue. His inspiration for this were the television series created by the celebrated British writer, Dennis Potter ("Pennies from Heaven", "The Singing Detective", "Lipstick on Your Collar"). In these series, the main characters would express their innermost thoughts by breaking into song and dance, miming to a well-known song. Resnais, who offers this film as a tribute to Potter, uses the same lip-synching approach, but uses snatches of songs rather than complete ballads. It is an idea which works surprisingly well, giving the film some of its funniest moments, although non-French viewers who are not familiar with the songs may fail to appreciate some of the references. The dialogue was written by Jean-Pierre Bacri et Agnès Jaoui, who wrote and starred in Resnais’ earlier two-part film, Smoking/No Smoking, the director’s most minimalist and controversial film to date. The duo also star in the film, alongside other regulars to Resnais’ films, Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azéma and André Dussollier. Sabine Azéma gives a particularly enjoyable performance as the driven and paranoid Odile who is heading for a spectacular fall. Although the film fared well in France, and landed a remarkable seven Césars, it has not repeated its success abroad. Nonetheless, this is an entertaining romantic comedy, perhaps a little too complicated, but ceaselessly charming and with some very funny moments. © James Travers 2001 Write a review for this film... |
|
