Vénus et Fleur (2004) - film review

Whilst holidaying in the South of France one summer, Fleur, a shy Parisian, meets an out-going Russian named Vénus.  The two young women could hardly be more different and yet they strike up an immediate rapport.  When Fleur invites her new friend to stay with her in her holiday squat, Vénus readily accepts.   Vénus reveals that her ambition is to catch herself a nice-looking Frenchman so that she can get married and settle in France.  To that end, she drags Fleur off to the beach so that they can start hunting for eligible boyfriends.  For some reason, the young men of Marseilles prove strangely resilient to Vénus’s powers of seduction.  When Bonheur, a friend of Fleur’s brother, drops by, Vénus is convinced that she has found her man and immediately goes on the charm offensive.  But again she is to be disappointed.  Bonheur is more interested in the quiet Fleur than her man-eating companion...

Emmanuel Mouret’s belated follow-up to his delightfully exuberant comedy Laissons Lucie faire! (2000) retains the sunny Marseilles location (the director’s hometown) but is a much more considered work, a sensitively played coming-of-age rom-com that could easily be mistaken for one of Eric Rohmer’s later films.  Although Rohmer’s influence can be seen in all of Mouret’s films, this is the one which is most Rohmer-esque in its subject and style, and yet Mouret also manages to impose his own auteur identity on the film, through his sharp humour and nimble pirouettes between farce and quite brutal drama.   Spared the Woody Allen-style escapades of Mouret’s subsequent romantic comedies, Vénus et fleur has an understated maturity about it that sets it apart from the rest of the director’s oeuvre and makes it one of his most engaging films.

Like Rohmer, Mouret has no qualms over using non-professional actors in his films.  For Vénus et fleur, he cast unknowns in the three lead roles and his producer, Frédéric Niedermayer, in the main supporting role.  None of these cast members had had much, if any, prior acting experience, but you would never guess this from their performances.  Every scene is played as if was taken from real life, and each character is well-drawn and authentically portrayed.  Isabelle Pirès and Veroushka Knoge not only complement one another perfectly with their contrasting personalities, they both deliver a compelling and nuanced performance, playing the film’s lighter and more serious moments with equal aplomb.   Each of their characters has a fragile inner self beneath a seemingly insouchiant exterior, and what is most commendable about Pirès and Knoge’s contribution is the way in which they expose this fragility, with the subtlest of gestures, like a criminal revealing a guilty secret.

In contrast to Mouret’s subsequent, more polished productions, Vénus et Fleur has a raw, almost cinéma vérité quality which gives it a particular charm.  This arose from the constraints that Mouret was up against (a low budget and tight production schedule) but also from the way he chose to make the film.  Mouret did not start with a completed script but instead developed the film from an outline whilst shooting it (following the example of some of the French New Wave directors).  Consequently, the film grew organically, with the characters developing naturally from the personalities of the actors.   This approach not only gives the film a striking realist edge but also a sense of spontaneity, the impression that what we are watching is real life rather than a calculated immitation if it.   Vénus et Fleur may not be as slickly structured as Mouret’s other films, but it does feel more humane, more true to life.  The humour is more restrained and the poignant moments are handled with greater delicacy, the result being a film of immense charm and sensitivity, and a potential career highpoint for Emmanuel Mouret.

© James Travers 2011

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