Nosh 112: 'Let the Sunshine In' & More

By David Elliott

Flix Nosh is a personal movie menu, fresh each Friday.

Note: Nosh 113 will appear on Friday, June 22

APPETIZER: Review of Let the Sunshine In.

In bed having sex, the naked Isabelle is asked by her lover in subtitles: “Are you cuming?” Is this a Franglais word, already in the Dictionnaire Larousse? Did Moliere use an equivalent? Such is levity in Let the Sunshine In, a serious and feminist collaboration of two of the more adventurous talents in French film: director Claire Denis (Chocolat, Beau Travail, White Material) and Juliette Binoche, who plays Isabelle with the same supple, intricate intensity she brought to Blue, Certified Copy, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The English Patient, Clouds of Sils Maria and her own Chocolat (actually, Lasse Hallstrom’s).

If you enjoyed the waking snooze of Book Club, while trying to not drop vanilla wafer crumbs on your doily, then this candid film is not for you. Isabella has various men, so variously that we guess she’s a prostitute. No, she is a Parisian painter, recently broken from a nice husband still disconsolate (their two daughters are barely seen). She is desperate for a deeper connection, and her erotic neediness has a throb of panic, fueled by new middle-aged freedom and fear of growing older. At 54 Binoche is still a beauty, but her real edge has always been risky honesty, armed with searching intelligence. Isabelle doesn’t trust her feelings or judgments, and late-season sexual adventure is a minefield.

She endures bad sex with an arrogant banker (Xavier Beauvois), whom she soon despises. She pinballs to a married actor (sullenly charismatic Nicolas Duvachelle), who seems to enjoy his ambivalence as a seminar in the  Method. She’s frustrated when a sensitive black man (Denis regular Alex Descas) tenderly but warily backs away. The thoughtful advice of friends gains little traction. Isabelle’s hunger for something true and natural leads her to lash out at companions for intellectualizing a walk in the country. Denis might have shown more of Isabelle’s art, since she calls painting her life. The sexiest scene, of Isabelle dancing to Etta James’s “At Last” (Etta’s photo is on her wall earlier) when a gaunt, wolfish seducer (Paul Blain) cuts in rakishly. promises more than is delivered.

Denis is a form-breaker (she assisted Wim Wenders on two of his greatest movies, Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire). The film is a volatile weather of feelings, full of Binoche’s signature nuances. It’s like watching emotive clouds form and disperse. The jumbo cloud floats into view: Gerard Depardieu as a love-therapy soothsayer, dispensing solemn bullshit with Gallic fluency. When he talks about the risks and rewards of men “gourmandizing” Isabelle, she glows. Gazing on Depardieu’s richly fed bulk, we sense that, once again, l’amour fou has found la comédie francaise.     

SALAD: A List

Twelve Classic French Romances:
With year and stars: L’Atalante (Dita Parlo, Jean Dasté, Michel Simon,1934), Port of Shadows (Jean Gabin, Michele Morgan, 1938), Beauty and the Beast (Jean Marais, Josette Day, 1946), Casque d’Or (Simone Signoret, Serge Reggiani, 1952), The Earrings of Madame De … (Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, 1953), The Lovers (Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Marc Bory, 1958), Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Emmanuele Riva, Eiji Okada, 1959), Breathless (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, 1960), Jules et Jim (Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, 1962), Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo, 1964), A Man and a Woman (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Anouk Aimee, 1966), Cesar et Rosalie (Yves Montand, Romy Schneider, 1972).

     

WINE (Vin Orsonaire de Chateau Welles)

When a fire consumed his home in the Hollywood hills, destroying precious art, letters, first editions, Aldous Huxley felt the loss, but then liberation. Orson Welles felt the same after his home burned in Spain: “Peter Bogdanovich: ‘You lost a lot didn’t you?’ OW: ‘Manuscripts, letters, a really marvelous long one from Roosevelt, a cup that Lincoln gave my grandfather …’ PB: ‘How terrible.’ OW: ‘I try not to think so. I’ve got a thing about possessions. All my life I’ve tried to avoid letting them possess me.’ ” (Quote from This Is Orson Welles, by Welles and Bogdanovich.)

ENTRÉE (Starlight Rising)

Diane Arbus was small but not shy, and often “the famous felt invaded (by her lens). Mae West vehemently protested her Arbus shots. Feminist firebrand Germaine Greer had a close encounter of the Arbus kind at the Chelsea Hotel: ‘It was tyranny, really tyranny. Diane Arbus ended up straddling me – this frail little person kneeling, keening over my face. I felt completely terrorized. I decided, ‘Damn it, you’re not going to do this to me, lady! I’m not going to be photographed like one of your grotesque freaks!” (From the Nicole Kidman/Fur chapter of my 2016 book Starlight Rising: Acting Up in Movies. To order, go to Amazon, Nook or Kindle.)

DESSERT (An Image)

A great movie image is more than a still, it’s a distillation.

Michel Simon steers the romantic barge in L’Atalante (France, 1934; director Jean Vigo, cinematographer Boris Kaufman).

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