Partir (2009)

Partir is a French romantic film drama first released in 2009, directed by Catherine Corsini.  The film stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López, Yvan Attal, Bernard Blancan and Aladin Reibel.  It has also been released under the title: Leaving.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Tired of her comfortable middleclass existence, 40-something housewife Suzanne makes the decision to resume her career as a physiotherapist.  With the support of her husband, she goes ahead and makes preparations to open a new clinic.  During the building work, she is strangely attracted to the site foreman, a man who has enjoyed none of her privileges and appears to inhabit a completely different world.  In a moment of madness, Suzanne decides to give up everything so that she can pursue an intense affair with her new lover...

The scenario is a familiar one.  The bored wife, the complacent husband and the Latin lover.   We all know the story.  It is the eternal triangle, a tale of lust and infidelity that can only end in disaster, or, at the very least, a houseful of broken china.  The plot is as well-trodden as the floor coverings in Hampton Court Palace and yet in this, her latest film, Catherine Corsini gives it a modern twist that makes it relevant for today’s discerning cinema audience.  Partir is as much an expression of a woman’s right to live her life as she chooses as it is a thoroughly engrossing piece of film drama.

With its unashamed sensuality, authentic depiction of male-female conflict and deathly dark undercurrents, Partir feels like an overt homage to François Truffaut (a director whom Corsini greatly admires).  The references to La Peau douce (1964) and La Femme d’à côté (1981) are not too hard to spot, and music by Truffaut collaborators Georges Delerue and Antoine Duhamel powerfully evokes the romanticism and darkness of Truffaut’s tragic melodramas.   The spectre of Françoise Sagan can also be felt in the film’s characterisation of an illicit romance as something that is both beautiful and terrible, a delirium of the senses that arouses the best and worst of human passions.

As well as being superbly directed, Partir also offers some sublime contributions from such talented performers as Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López and Yvan Attal.   Kristin Scott Thomas needs absolutely no introduction and her performance is just as you would expect - intelligent, compassionate and unceasingly believable.  Thomas brings to her portrayal an intensity which lends her character the aspect of a tragic heroine, conveying a real sense of desperation as she tries to grasp what may be her last chance of happiness.  Whilst Thomas dominates this film, she has some fine support from Sergi López and Yvan Attal, who complement one another perfectly as the lover and the husband - the one virile and passionate, the other cold and manipulative.  With three such charismatic performers, the film’s explosive potential is fully realised.  

Until recently, Catherine Corsini has received little in the way of serious critical acclaim for her work.  Her previous successes, La Nouvelle Eve (1999) and La Répétition (2001), both appear pretty lightweight in comparison with this latest offering, a full-bodied fusion of erotic thriller and romantic drama that is directed with flair and confidence.  Partir has a reality, a humanity and a feverish intensity that sets it way apart from Corsini’s other films and hopefully marks the beginning of an exciting new phase in this director’s career.

© James Travers 2010

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