Film Review
Through his preoccupation with intense romantic encounters and the
delicacy with which he depicts these in his films, Jérôme
Bonnell has often been likened to François Truffaut. This
impression can only be reinforced by
Le
Temps de l'aventure, Bonnell's fifth feature, as it somehow
manages to evoke the playfulness of Truffaut's mid-period films (
Baisers
volés) with the brooding melancholia of his later
films (
La Femme d'à côté),
whilst having a unique identity of its own. Still barely into his
mid-thirties, Bonnell embodies Truffaut's notion of the auteur
perfectly, impressing both with the originality and authenticity of his
filmmaking and his perceptiveness as a student of human nature.
The plot of Bonnell's latest film is absurdly simple, the classic
boy-meets-girl scenario beloved by French filmmakers and audiences
alike. Yet, as he has already demonstrated in his previous films
Le Chignon d'Olga (2002)
and
Les Yeux clairs
(2005), Bonnell has a talent for taking a simple idea and developing it
into the most profound exploration of the human psyche. Central to the
film is Emmanuelle Devos's engrossing portrayal of a modern woman,
Alix, who, having run aground in Paris (ironically on the first day of
summer), falls prey to the most virulent bout of amorous
infatuation. Having given a knock-out performance in Bonnell's
earlier film
J'attends quelqu'un (2007),
Devos is ideally suited to play the feisty middle-aged actress who gets
caught up in the worst kind of mid-life crisis, with her old
certainties shattered and her present reality fracturing into a myriad
of future possibilities.
On her arrival in a festive Paris, apparently without money and with no
hope of reaching the one person who might be able to lend her a helping
hand, Alix resembles a newborn puppy struggling to adapt to its new
environment. The one tangible thing she feels she can hold on to
as her world falls apart around her is an overwhelming attraction for
the man she met on a train (Gabriel Byrne at his suavest), a man who
(being a typical Brit) can speak no French and with whom she can only
communicate in prep school English. At first, the two
characters appear ludicrously ill-matched, self-consciously enacting a
beefed up version of
Brief Encounter, but as the
film develops (at a pace some cinemagoers may consider lethargic) we
begin to understand the reason for the magnetic attraction between the
two disparate individuals. Both have arrived at a crossroads in
their lives and appear ready for a dramatic change of direction.
In the confusion of an existential crisis, where nothing is certain and
life is no more than a limbo of delirium, they are drawn to each other
like two drowning sailors in a sea storm.
It is tempting to compare
Le Temps
de l'aventure with Claire Denis's similar film
Vendredi
soir (2002), which takes a more simplistic view of that
mysterious pull which leads to a one-night stand, pretty well reducing
it to no more than a primitive bestial impulse. Not only is
Bonnell's film far more poetic and humane than Denis's, it is much more
rigorous in its analysis. Whilst Denis is happy to plod about on
the surface, reworking the old clichés to avoid
unnecessary brainstrain and heartache, Bonnell digs much deeper and
reminds us of the extent to which our lives are governed by powerful
forces that we can never understand - tidal waves of the subconscious
that we must learn to surf as best we can. For anyone who has
ever experienced the raging frenzy of a mid-life crisis,
Le Temps de l'aventure feels
extraordinarily close to the mark, and you can't help wondering how a
filmmaker as young as Bonnell could possibly come up with such a vivid
and true-to-life depiction of the maelstrom that we must all traverse
as we tred the banana-skin strewn path that takes us from youth to
maturity.
© James Travers 2013
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Next Jérôme Bonnell film:
À trois, on y va (2015)
Film Synopsis
Alix, an actress in her early forties, is performing in a play in
Calais. When her paycheque fails to turn up she becomes anxious
and takes the next train to Paris, hoping to hook up with her strangely
elusive boyfriend. During the journey, she makes eye contact with
an attractive older man and finds herself drawn to him. When the
train reaches Paris, Alix and the man go their separate ways, neither
expecting to see the other again. But something draws them
together and in no time they are caught up in a whirlwind of
passion. Is this merely a wild infatuation, destined to burn
itself out before the day is over, or the beginning of something more
substantial...?
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.