Sous le sable (2000)
Directed by François Ozon

Film Review

With his first three full-length films (Sitcom, Les Amants criminels and Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes), François Ozon has earned a reputation as the enfant terrible of French cinema in the late 1990s.  Sous le sable is an altogether different kind of film, an introspective drama which takes on a serious subject with considerable maturity and insight.  The film reveals in this controversial young director a talent and sensitivity which has to date been largely obscured by his preoccupation with shocking his audience and earning a certain notoriety.  Now that he has gained our attention, François Ozon has the freedom to explore more personal themes with greater restraint and a more measured artistic vision than previously.  Sous le sable marks a definitive turning point in Ozon's filmmaking career and is quite possibly the first in a series of major works from a man who looks destined to be one of the leading directors of his generation.

Compared with Ozon's previous films, the subject of Sous le sable is both simple and realistic, and therein lies its seductive charm and devastating power.  The film is about a middle-aged woman, Marie, who is unable to accept the loss of her husband and who resolutely holds onto the belief that he is still with her.  Occasionally, reality breaks through her spell of denial and self-delusion, like a ray of sunlight breaching the gap between a pair of drawn curtains.  But so strong is her love for her husband and so reluctant is she to let go that her desire to keep him in the present tense soon reasserts itself.   The film's impact derives from the way it allows us to see and experience the world from Marie's perspective.  Seen from a distance, the character would appear sad, mad or pathetic.  The genius of this film is that it lets us enter into her world, lets us experience her inner disintegration as she struggles to reconcile her irrational hopes with an inescapable reality.

With a self-discipline hitherto unseen in his work, Ozon shows us the minimum, just enough to allow his audience to latch onto the mood of his characters and accompany them on their faltering journey towards oblivion or enlightenement.  Watching the film is an absorbing yet totally unsettling experience.  What we are witnessing, from a privileged position, is the torment of a human spirit collapsing under the effort of trying to superimpose her flawed mental picture of the world on a reality that she cannot bear to see.  In virtually every respect, Sous le sable is François Ozon's darkest, most haunting, most accomplished work to date.

Ozon has stated that the idea for the film came from an unhappy childhood recollection.  Whilst on holiday with his family, he would often see an elderly Dutch couple on the beach.  One day, the Dutch husband disappeared, apparently having drowned, and the disarray of his wife left an impression on the young François Ozon.  When he came to make the film, over 20 years later, Ozon had difficulty financing it.  Having shot the first part of the film (leading up to the disappearance of Jean), the rest of the filming had to be put back six months until the director had acquired the funds to finish his film.  When shooting was resumed, it was undertaken relatively speedily with Super 16, in contrast to the 35mm film which was used for the first part of the film.  This gives the film a striking point of discontinuity which reinforces the impression that, after Jean's disappearance, we are in an altogether different world, that seen by Marie in her state of abject denial.

However accomplished Ozon is in his art, it is unlikely that Sous le sable would have succeeded without a strong, hugely talented lead actress.  The director and his film are blessed by a mature English beauty, Charlotte Rampling, who gives the performance of her career in a role that appears to have been created for her alone.  From the first scene to the last, Rampling's presence dominates the film - the camera capturing both her external beauty and her internal conflict in equal measure.  With courage and skill which are rarely seen in cinema, the actress takes her character to the limits of human experience and what we see is a tortured victim who might easily be any one of us.  Cinema is rarely this explicit or effective in depicting an intense psychological trauma, and for the audience participating in this adventure is both an illuminating and harrowing experience.

Although Charlotte Rampling is the film's focus, the supporting actors are well chosen and each contributes magnificently to the film's impact.  Rampling's husband in the film, Jean, is played by the bear-like Bruno Cremer, an actor who is now best known in France for his definitive portrayal of Inspector Maigret in a popular French television series.  Cremer's evident earthiness and world-weariness are in striking contrast to Rampling's sophistication and lust for life - something which gives the film some bizarre undercurrents.  Perhaps Marie's reluctance to let go is the product of a sub-conscious guilt at not being able to cope with her husband's depression?  Or maybe she is aware of their obvious mutual incompatibility and her delusion is merely her way of fending off the notion that he may simply have left her?   Such ambiguity almost saturates this film, lending it the feel of a dark psychological thriller, reminiscent of the work of another great French film director, Claude Chabrol.   By not revealing too much, Sous le sable leaves room for the spectator's imagination, and piecing together the film's complex strands is just one of its many pleasures.

Credit should also go to Jacques Nolot for an equally convincing performance as Marie's new lover, Vincent - a character who is, for Marie, no more than a corporeal stand-in for her physically absent husband.  Indeed, Marie's strained relationships with all of the characters in the film (after her husband's disappearance) emphasise repeatedly the impression of a woman who is trying to live simultaneously in two worlds.  One of the film's dramatic highpoints is the vicious confrontation between Marie and Jean's mother (movingly portrayed by Andrée Tainsy).  The tension in this relatively simple scene is almost unbearable and provides a convincing trigger which enables Marie to finally look reality in the face and emerge from her period of denial.

The final segment of the film is daring in its simplicity but it is hugely effective, with Marie finally having the courage to confront her grief and begin a new life without her husband.  Ozon then comes dangerously close to blowing it all by tacking on a needlessly surreal ambiguous ending.  Fortunately, Rampling's performance is so strong at this point that this indulgence is easily swallowed.  In a curious sense, the film's ending works quite well, closing the mystery of Marie's ordeal with an enigmatic question mark about her future life - a life which, of course, we can only guess at.   Who knows what else may lie there, hidden, under the sand...?

Film Synopsis

Marie Drillon, a woman in her early fifties, lectures in English literature at Paris university and has been happily married for twenty-five years.  As is their custom, she and her husband Jean set out for their summer holiday in the southwest of France, staying at their country house in the Landes.  This year Marie notices that something is different.  Her husband is quieter, more preoccupied by his own thoughts, than usual and they find it hard to communicate.  One sunny afternoon, whilst Marie is relaxing on the beach, Jean walks towards the sea, ostensibly to go for his customary swim.

This is the last Marie ever sees of him.  Without delay, she gets on to the authorities to report her husband's disappearance, but there is no news.  With nothing else to do but wait and hope, Marie returns to Paris and tries to lose herself in her work.  She even finds herself a new lover, Vincent.  Yet, try as she might, Marie cannot believe that the man who has been with her for so long and who feels like a part of herself has been taken from her.  Jean's presence is felt everywhere she goes, as if he were following her about, refusing to let go of her.   It isn't long before Marie's strange behaviour begins to perturb her friends...