Peindre ou faire l’amour (2005) - film review

William and Madeleine, a married couple in their early fifties, live in a town near the French Alps.  One afternoon, Madeleine is painting a picture of a run-down old house in the countryside when she meets Adam, a cultured blind man who is mayor of the nearby town.  At Adam’s suggestion, Madeleine and William take a closer look at the house and decide to buy it.  They become close friends with their neighbours, Adam and his wife Eva.  When their house is destroyed in a fire, Adam and Eva willingly accept the invitation to stay with Madeleine and William.  Their relationship suddenly takes an unexpected turn…

Peindre ou faire l’amour is a curious little film, in the mould of the familiar French film d’auteur. It broaches the taboo subject of settled couples swapping their partners with a directness and poetry that is not altogether unappealing.   This is the third full-length film from the Larrieu brothers, whose very distinctive style of cinema continues to divide the critics.  Whilst the film has a lot going for it (a raw sense of realism, a dash of understated Rohmer-like comedy and some eye-catching photography) it does feel a tad insubstantial.  The idea of breaking up the narrative into digestible chunks with sumptuous panoramic tracking shots of the mountain location would have worked better without the accompanying snatches of pop songs which make the thing look cheap and somewhat hackneyed.  The biggest failing, however, is that, despite the first rate cast, the characters are not entirely convincing, and, since the film is entirely centred around its characters, things do drag in a quite few places – although there are admittedly a few moments of brilliance which make up for this.

© James Travers 2007

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