LA BELLE EPOQUE
France, 2019, 112 minutes, Colour.
Daniel Auteuil, Fanny Ardant, Guillaume Canet, Doris Tillier, Pierre Arditi.
Directed by Nicolas Bedos.
This seems a rather grandiose title – and, it is misleading. The period referred generally to with this title extends from the end of the Franco-Prussian? War, 1871, to the outbreak of World War II, 1914. A beautiful era for France.
In fact, this film has a contemporary setting, very much the 21st-century. It does, however, begin with a sequence that looks like that beautiful Epoque. Costumed guests sit around the dinner table, talking, uttering racist statements, and guest with a roving gay eye on a black waiter – and a sudden violent eruption.
It is not a spoiler to say that this is a contrived sequence, the work of a company, headed by an entrepreneur (Guillaume Canet) who have their own studios, production offices, a large group of aspiring actors to draw on, re-creating scenes from the past. Their business is to have clients who provide them with information, desires and hopes, so the particular period of their life can be staged and they can be involved in it. It seems something like a reverse experience of The Truman Show, Truman living his life under the cameras, in studio setups, and the director intervening in his life as Truman discovers it. This time the director is hired, creates the situation, gives the cast storylines that they have to develop, so that the client can go back and rediscover the past and what it had meant.
This is quite an ingenious idea for the screenplay – and, we the audience, willingly share the experience with the client, share the experience in the present with its regrets, participate in the experience of the past, looking forward to some outcomes for the better.
Daniel Auteuil and Fanny Ardant (Victor and Marianne) play a couple who have been married for over 40 years. He has lost his job, a sketch artist, and is depressed, railing against younger generations and the dependence on technology and social media. She is a strong-minded woman, disappointed in her husband, in her marriage, seeking solace elsewhere. Their son is a good friend of the producer-directir and offers his father the opportunity to relive his past.
There is a fascination all the time in watching the director and his control, manipulation, the cast and their improvisations in developments of the storylines, glimpses of other stories and people coping with their past. There is also the complication that the young actress, Margot (Doris Tillier) taking the role of Victor’s wife, also becomes the object of fascination and attractive for Victor. But, she has the complications of her own life, especially in her relationship with Antwoine.
We uses to go back to 1974, to the restaurant where he first encountered Marianne. The recreation is meticulous, the characters bringing the past to life, Victor relishing his reliving of the experience.
Of course, the experience of going into the past, of living the happiness again and realising that the happiness had collapsed, could make for some grim introspection. And there are these moments. However, while the themes are serious, the screenplay is often quite funny (and the writer-director, Nicolas Bedos was born as late as 1980). This leads to an effect for both Victor and Marianne, rediscovering the hopes and love of the past, and that they need not necessarily be lost forever.
The film received a standing ovation at the Khan film Festival in 2019 – tres francais!
1. The title, the reference to the past Europe? For this film, whose Epoque?
2. The acclaim for the film, popularity?
3. The inventive screenplay, the parallels with such programs as The Truman Show, Westworld, Fantasy Island…? The use of film and television? Creating a life? Creating situation? The role and interventions of the director?
4. The opening, the banquet sequence, the 19th century, the guests, clothes, food, chatter, their snobbery, race issues, the gay man, accosting the waiter, his biting the lips? The discovery that this was a created scene, actors and scenario?
5. Antoine, his past as a child, his injury? Friendship with Victor’s son? His remembering Victor’s advice? The growing friendship with the son, his company, his studios, the cast, the scenarios, the range of clients, to return to their past, to go to a fabricated situation? The client supplying the information and cues? The assistance, the woman assistant and her role in the scenario? Antoine and his involvement with Margot, and the tension in Victor’s re-created life?
6. The introduction to Victor and Marianne, their age, the tension in their marriage, past love? Victor, his career, sketches, losing his job, anti-technology, nodding off, depressed? Marian and her style, her career, critical of her husband, the apartment, the clashes, his moving out?
7. Marianne, Victor’s friend, the office, the affair, his being at home, snoring, the deceit? Marianne discussing the situation with her son?
8. Victor, upset, moving out, moving into his friend’s place, his son and the invitation to revisit the past, his acceptance?
9. The appointment, giving the information, going back to 1974, his sketches, the contriving of the scene? The cast, the range, their stories, their interpretation? The decor of the restaurant the period? The role of the director, watching, guiding, interventions?
10. Margot, her Polish background, her place in the cast, wanting to keep her job? In herself, as Marianne? The friendship of Giselle and her entering into the story? Victor reliving his life, the range of scenarios? Margo, the scene with the baby and the husband? Contrived? The cast and their air piece earpieces?
11. Victor, the effect of reliving his life? The memories evoked, the regrets? His continuing?
12. Paul, the scenario with his father? As the concierge? Discussions with Victor? The drink on his day off?
13. Victor becoming involved, the attraction torture marker, the resistance, the discussion, his visit to the house?
14. Victor and Marianne meeting in 1974, their discussions about their life, the effect on each of them, the effect on Marianne, dropping her scarf? Victor and the rekindling of love?
15. Marianne, breaking off the affair? Bonding again with Victor? The future?
