François Truffaut, France, 1981, Diaphana pour MK2
Comment
In the suburbs of Grenoble Mathilde (Fanny Ardant) and Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) become neighbours by chance. A few years earlier they had a brief but passionate affair, a fact that they keep hidden from their other halves, concealing that they even know each other. Their passion for each other once again overtakes them, but remains hidden up until this point. Unlike the other characters in the film, the viewer is totally aware of the romantic situation.
Everything flips in one particular instant when Depardieu experiences a moment of madness at a garden party, where all of their friends from Grenoble are gathered together to send Mathilde and her husband off on their previously delayed honeymoon. His actions reveal to both their other halves and their friends the passionate bonds that still bind them together.
The moment of madness comes about, as in The Collector, by a brief, random event. Getting up from the chair, Mathilde’s dress gets caught, and she finds herself briefly exposed in her underwear. This sudden bout of public nudity liberates Bernard of all of his inhibitions and he makes a mad dash for his mistress in front of all their friends. This moment where everything flips sets the course of the film in a direction from which there is no return, as everyone now knows the reality of the untenable situation between these two neighbouring couples.
A little later in the film the same situation crops up again, in another garden party, which has been thrown to mark the publication of a book Mathilde has written for children. This time it’s her who cracks and takes shelter under a bush. Like in a Western, all of their friends set off to find her, witnessing her fall deeper into depression.
These two scenes constructed around an identical situation, where something very private is suddenly exposed in public, gives voice to the structure of how the two couples relate to each other – when one is well and balanced the other finds themselves in difficulty, becoming off balance and depressed, a pattern which repeats again and again.
Comment
In the suburbs of Grenoble Mathilde (Fanny Ardant) and Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) become neighbours by chance. A few years earlier they had a brief but passionate affair, a fact that they keep hidden from their other halves, concealing that they even know each other. Their passion for each other once again overtakes them, but remains hidden up until this point. Unlike the other characters in the film, the viewer is totally aware of the romantic situation.
Everything flips in one particular instant when Depardieu experiences a moment of madness at a garden party, where all of their friends from Grenoble are gathered together to send Mathilde and her husband off on their previously delayed honeymoon. His actions reveal to both their other halves and their friends the passionate bonds that still bind them together.
The moment of madness comes about, as in The Collector, by a brief, random event. Getting up from the chair, Mathilde’s dress gets caught, and she finds herself briefly exposed in her underwear. This sudden bout of public nudity liberates Bernard of all of his inhibitions and he makes a mad dash for his mistress in front of all their friends. This moment where everything flips sets the course of the film in a direction from which there is no return, as everyone now knows the reality of the untenable situation between these two neighbouring couples.
A little later in the film the same situation crops up again, in another garden party, which has been thrown to mark the publication of a book Mathilde has written for children. This time it’s her who cracks and takes shelter under a bush. Like in a Western, all of their friends set off to find her, witnessing her fall deeper into depression.
These two scenes constructed around an identical situation, where something very private is suddenly exposed in public, gives voice to the structure of how the two couples relate to each other – when one is well and balanced the other finds themselves in difficulty, becoming off balance and depressed, a pattern which repeats again and again.