Film Review
The second of Eric Rohmer's
Comédies
et proverbes,
Le Beau marriage
is one of the director's cruellest and most playful films, an
insightful chamber piece which mocks the tendency that we all have to
build castles in the air and let our imagination rule our head and our
heart. The film takes its cue from La Fontaine's well-known fable
of
The Milkmaid and the Pot of Milk
("Quel esprit ne bat la campagne? Qui ne fait châteaux en
Espagne?" / "What mind doesn't wander over meadows? Who does not build
castles in Spain?"). As in the famous fable, the heroine - a
strong-willed arts student with some very curious ideas about feminism
- constructs for herself an elaborate fantasy which, inevitably, comes
crashing about her ears when she realises the extent of her
delusion. We may laugh at Sabine's naivety and
her artless attempts at social climbing, but her ultimate fate
engages our sympathies and we take comfort from the sly coda which
offers the prospect of a far happier outcome, not in wonderland, but in
the real world.
Perfectly cast as the forceful yet pitifully vulnerable Sabine is
Béatrice Romand, one of Eric Rohmer's favourite actresses.
Romand had previously featured in Rohmer's
Le Genou de Claire (1970)
(playing the manipulative teenager Laura) and would appear in several
of the director's subsequent films, most notably
Conte
d'automne (1998). Sabine's victim, Edmond, is
skilfully portrayed by André Dussollier, whose body language in
his scenes with Romand is so expressive that his dialogue is pretty
well superfluous. Dussollier had previously had a
substantial part in Rohmer's
Perceval le Gallois (1978), the
film which marked the screen debut of Arielle Dombasle, here cast as
the Jane Austen-like matchmaker Clarisse. Rohmer was so taken
with Dombasle that he subsequently gave her a leading role in
Pauline à la plage
(1983), which is widely considered one of his best films.
Romand's Sabine and Dombasle's Clarisse make a striking contrast, and
it is through this contrast that Sabine's folly is exposed to great
effect. For Sabine, Clarisse represents the acme of womanhood,
happily married to a wealthy man and able to indulge her artistic
interests, freed from the burden of having to earn her own wage to
supplement the household income. Of course, Clarisse's apparent
freedom is illusory and she sees her marriage for what it truly is, an
unnecessary stricture imposed on her by society, or rather the
bourgeois stratum of society to which she so evidently belongs.
Sabine does not see the limitations of Clarisse's existence, she sees
only the perceived benefits of being a kept woman. Her ideas of
marriage are as muddled and absurdly childish as her views on feminism,
so the learning curve she subjects herself to as she goes after her
idea of connubial bliss will inevitably be a steep and painful
one. But, as we see from the film's ending, the experience was
well worthwhile. Wasn't it Jane Fonda (that well-known one-woman feminist
movement and patron saint of Lycra) who popularised the phrase:
there's no gain without pain?
© James Travers 2002
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Eric Rohmer film:
Pauline à la plage (1983)
Film Synopsis
Sabine is a 25 year old student in art history at Paris
University. She is currently having an affair with a married man,
Simon, but she suddenly decides to put an end to the relationship when
she grows tired of the incessant phone calls from her lover's wife and
children. Declaring her intention to find a husband of her own,
she heads back to her home town of Le Mans. At a wedding
reception, Sabine's best friend Clarisse introduces her to a successful
young lawyer named Edmond. In an instant, Sabine decides
that Edmond is the man she will marry, but he disappears before she has
an opportunity to get her hooks into him. Convinced that Edmond
will make the ideal husband, Sabine begins a relentless campaign of
seduction, ringing his office repeatedly and luring him back to Le Mans
on the smallest pretext. What she has not allowed for is the
possibility that Edmond may have no intention of getting married...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.