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L'argent (1983)
When it works and when it doesn't
It's perceptible that Robert Bresson had his own peculiar approach and direction in filmmaking. He sought balance in framing, preferred wood carvings over drawings, and chose characters devoid of feelings. If achieving this was not possible, he would simply avoid displaying his actors' emotions on screen. This approach was particularly successful in the film "Au Hasard Balthazar,'' though in his last film, "L'Argent," the similar directorial approach yielded less results.
In "Au Hasard Balthazar," the limited screen time of the actors allowed the misery surrounding the mistreated donkey, Balthazar, to take focus, which reflected back to its environment and the viewers. Marie, portrayed by Anne Wiazemsky, with her tortured and unique countenance, successfully embodied the concept of detachment as seen through Bresson's viewpoint-it was natural and unforced. The audacity of shooting with non-professional actors and their monotone inexpressiveness built a tone of distanced despair that, paradoxically, amplified Balthazar's martyrdom. Bresson's formalist aesthetic, with its focus on visuals and symbolism, resonated well with the film's major themes of innocence, suffering, and redemption.
While this stylistic strategy was similarly employed in "L'Argent," it was not as effective. "L'Argent," inspired by a Tolstoy novella, presented a much more complex, modernist narrative about the corrupting influence of money and moral decay in a humanistic way. This plot demanded more passioned acting to reveal the intricate nature of the characters' personalities and their thought processes. Bresson's austere and spartan approach failed to foster the kind of attachment required for this kind of story. The quietness in pacing started to break down as Bresson tried to connect philosophically the existence of the soul, or lack thereof, with materialism, and if we dig through layers of lethargy, classism. This was in a lot of ways contrast with the kind of understated transformations everyone, and everything went through in "Au Hasard Balthazar".
Bresson's ascetic and minimalist style, while felt like a breath of fresh air in "Au Hasard Balthazar," where the victim-like inertia of Balthazar and the calm stoicism of Marie necessitated it (to the point that it felt as if only Bresson alone could tackle it), suffered in "L'Argent", where the non-exaggerated recitation of lines, the out-of-shot physicality appeared somewhat problematic as emerging ethical dilemmas became central. It would have worked better had Bresson, rather than making a film of defeat, written of it: the parameters of anguish would have been more faithful, and balanced.
Serre moi fort (2021)
Grief in a way
Grief is a compelling theme in cinema. Indeed, it's a subject that is persistently explored in the arts - grief is inevitable, all-encompassing and unforgiving: it is intertwined with time, and can only be experienced in time. But what version of time is commonly associated or portrayed with grief, but a linear one? In Serre moi fort (2021) by actor-turned director-Mathieu Amalric (you may know him from his performances in Le scaphandre et le papillon and The Grand Budapest Hotel), there is a singular subversion of this trend, and though non-linear time as a concept has been around awhile now, in cinematic language, in this masterfully done work, it has appeared anew, and so we arrive at an unconventionality.
"Serre moi fort" or "Hold Me Tight", adapted from an unpublished play by Claudine Galea, tells the story of a woman, played by the phenomenal Vicky Krieps (is it a coincidence?), recounting her departure from her family... or does it? The film's description suggests as much. Without revealing too much and risking spoilers, I can say that the description aptly encapsulates the essence of "Serre moi fort", and more broadly, the central conflict of the art form itself, which lies in its mysteries, riddles, puzzles, and the struggle for definition - in this case, the definition of grief.
Grief can be seen as a state, a reaction, or a series of reactions to loss. And what is loss but an event that has occurred? In cinema, and in real life too, loss is perceived as something that has passed. Even though this is our usual perception, the true expression of grief is never fully captured - we may cry, we may scream, we may categorize it into stages, but the internal experience is not easily discernible, if at all. I believe that films have the potential to portray grief as something diverse: a variable, so to speak. This is what "Serre moi fort" has achieved to perfection, in my view: through experimenting with filmic sequencing, it is able to present grief as a malady that may lessen in symptomatic intensity over time but resurfaces, again and again, in tender moments, in lucid desperation of a long day. "Serre moi fort" also depicts grief as hallucinations, delusions, and projections, working similarly to nostalgia in enabling you to revisit the past, modify it, and learn from it. It is unreasonably visual, seen through the inner eye - which, perhaps, the medium of film can best convey to us.
So long as one knows grief and has grief, like Clarisse does.