MAL DE PIERRES/ FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON

France, 2016, 120 minutes, Colour.
Marion Cotillard, Louis Garell, Alex Brendemuhl, Victoire Du Bois, Aloise Sauvage, Daniel Para.
Directed by Nicole Garcia.

Nicole Garcia had a strong career as an actress and moved into the field of direction.

There is quite some scope in this story, with a rather exotic title in English compared with the original French title and that of the novel, Stone Sickness.

The film opens with parents taking a teenage son to a music competition with the mother stopping the car, recognising a street, going to a house – and the rest of the film in flashback.

Marion Cotillard is Gabrielle, who works on a farm near the Spanish border. She is infatuated with her teacher who rejects her advances. She is emotionally disabled, the concern for her parents, especially her mother who pressurises a Spanish worker, Jose, to take their daughter off their hands by marrying her. Each agrees to marry but that there is no love between the couple.

In a consultation with the doctor, it is a decided that Gabrielle should go to a sanatorium in Switzerland. She has Stone Sickness, a difficulty for conceiving. While at the sanatorium, she encounters a soldier returned from Indochina, helps one of the maids at the sanatorium, falls in love with the soldier and imagines his response to her. Her husband visits her. She finds she is pregnant.

She is happy giving birth. The film passes over the years of the child growing up into an adolescent. He has a musical talent. Meanwhile, Gabrielle has been writing to the soldier for years but eventually her letters are returned, unopened and unread.

Back to the competition and Gabrielle discovers that the soldier is long dead, and in talking with her husband, she and the audience realise that Jose iis the father of the young man.

French drama with the touches of melodrama.

1. The French title? The stone sickness? Gabrielle and her sickness? Effects, treatment? The English title with the exotic touch? The real world and the land of the moon?

2. The south of France, the Spanish border? The town, the countryside, the fields, the home? Switzerland, the institution, the beauty of the countryside? The musical score?

3. The opening, Gabrielle and José, their son, his music, driving to the competition, the son and his bond with his father? Gabrielle, seeing the street sign, getting out, searching, the bulk of the film as flashback?

4. Gabrielle’s story? At home? Her parents, the sister, Gabrielle and her relationship with the teacher, infatuated with him, the book and his signature, the romantic attitudes towards the book, towards the teacher, approaching him before the meal? His spurning her? The effect on her, physical illness, mental illness?

5. Her parents, their hard work, their concern? , his work as a labourer, the mother and her idea that they should marry? The agreement, no love between them? No courtship? The wedding, the wedding night, the living separate lives? The years passing?

6. Jose, good man, the marriage, his relationship with Gabrielle? Going into the city, the encounters with prostitutes? Gabrielle questioning him, the money, her dressing as a prostitute, their sexual encounter and his payment? The sexual effect on each of them, on their marriage? The miscarriage and its effect? The doctor, the diagnosis of Stone Sickness?

7. Gabrielle and her going to Switzerland, to the institution? Her loneliness? Her friendship with Agostine, their discussions, helping her on the ward, Agostine as a character, having the child?

8. Gabrielle seeing Andre, the background of the war in Indochina, the commentary about the 1950s and the war, the involvement of the French? Andre, the effect of war, his loyal assistant? His father, a general? His illness, passivity, weakness? The discussions with Gabrielle? Her infatuation with him? His response, the photo? The visiting, the greater involvement? His leaving, her running down the hills to stop the car?

9. José, his visit, taking her home? Her pregnancy? Giving birth? The baby boy, his growing up, musical skills and Gabrielle’s memory of Andre and the music? His talent, the visitors, his grandparents? His father supporting him?

10. Years passing, Gabrielle writing the letters to Andre, their being returned unread, her being upset?

11. The resumption of the journey to the competition, Gabrielle going to the house, finding Andre’s assistant, the death of the general, the selling of the house? The news that Andre had died the day that he left the Institute?

12. The effect on Gabrielle, walking the streets, remembering? Looking at the photo and the blurred presence? The discussions with her husband, her memories of the sexual encounter and its intensity, the fact that it was her husband? That the boy was his?

13. The portrait of a tormented woman? The good man and making a success of his life, career in building, father to his son? Their future?