LA VERITE/ THE TRUTH
France, 2019, 105 minutes, Colour.
Catherine Deneuve Juliette Binoche, Ethan Hawke, Clementine Grenier, Manon Clavel, Alain LIbolt, Ludovine Sagnier, Jackie Berroyer.
Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda.
This is a French drama, a very French drama in tone, characters, family and interactions. Which, when we discover the credits, is more than surprising. The Truth was written by the celebrated Japanese writer-director, Hirokazu Koreeda, who has made many striking Japanese films, including the family portraits, Nobody Knows, I Wish, Our Little Sister, as well as winning the Palme d’Or in Cannes for Shoplifters. Here he has immersed himself in the life, so French, of the family.
The title raises issues of: what is truth? What is the truth?
The central character is Fabienne, a famous French actress, a career over many decades, a grand dame of cinema. And she is played, in very grand dame manner by that icon of French cinema, Catherine Deneuve. Which raises the questions immediately as to where we find the truth, on the screen, in performance, in playing to the public, in real life?
What is more, the actress has just published a memoir and her daughter, Limur, played by another icon of French cinema as well as of world cinema, Juliette Binoche, comes to share the celebration. She has escaped from her dominating mother by going to the United States, marrying an actor (Ethan Hawke), doing screenwriting and raising their daughter, Charlotte (Clementine Grenier). As Llimur looks at the memoir, she discovers more and more untruth, serious omissions of characters who are close to the actress, fabrications of what her life and her relationship with her daughter had been.
Much of the film, as in so many French films, is in intense conversations between the characters, Fabienne saying that she preferred to be a great actress rather than a good mother. Limur finds herself in a strange situation, Fabienne’s manager of forty years (omitted from the memoir) decides to leave and bequeaths the actress to the care of her daughter.
This is particularly testing because Fabienne has agreed to do a cameo role in a science-fiction film. The central character is played by young actress, Manon Clavel, a character who is ageless but keeps reappearing to her daughter at various stages of the daughter’s life. Fabienne is to be the daughter encountering her young mother, aged in her early 70s. Fabienne is tormented by a rivalry of a long dead actress, responsible in some ways for her death, comparisons being continually made. And, at rehearsals, arriving late and putting on a careless manner, there are tantrums and indulging whims, testing the director.
But, this encounter with her daughter, having to look at herself somewhat more truthfully having promoted the lies in the memoir, there is the possibility for some kind of mutual understanding, for the mother to reflect on her limitations as a parent, for the daughter to appreciate something of her mother and effect some kind of reconciliation.
Catherine Deneuve has been receiving top billing in films for 55 years – and, the temptation throughout the film is to wonder how much she is acting as Fabienne and how much is a glimpse into the life and career of Catherine Deneuve herself. And, it is always good to see Juliette Binoche on screen, an actress of great talent. And, Ethan Hawke is always interesting, this time a hack television actor, reforming alcoholic, but a delightfully doting father for his little daughter.
1. The title? Real life, acting and performance? The memoir, falsities? Changing the truth?
2. The Japanese director, his perceptiveness on French life and characters?
3. The opening, Fabienne interrogated by the journalist, her answers, arrogant, her influence, status in French cinema? The fact that Catherine Deneuve was performing?
4. The house, the garden, the traffic nearby, the exteriors, the interiors, the walks, the avenues? The studio and sets? The musical score?
5. Fabienne as a person, ego, snobbish, petty? Her career and its success? Her memories of Sarah and the rivalry? Sara’s death, her responsibility? Her relationship with her daughter, preferring to be a good actress rather than a good mother? Her daughter leaving her, going to America? Her relationship with her husband, his scruffy look, turning up? Fabienne’s sexual relationships, the casting couch? Her relationship with her chef, his position in the house? Luc, serving her for 40 years, finally exasperated and leaving?
6. The occasion of her memoir, exaggerating the published numbers, the family coming to be with her? The omissions, characters and their feeling hurt? Her altering facts and situations?
7. Limur, Juliette Binoche? Her husband, her daughter, living in the United States, her writing, his performance on television? Bonds? His career and drinking, giving up? His being a good father, playing with his daughter? The atmosphere of the visit, the memoir, the daughter looking at the book, critical of her mother? Her mother’s treatment of her? Her past, her father visiting? The issue of the performance in The Wizard of Oz – the later irony that her mother had seen it?
8. The meetings, the meals, the family gathering together? The chef and his role?
9. Fabienne and her past, the jealousy of Sara, Sarah’s death, getting parts away from Sara, relationship with directors?
10. Luc leaving, handing over the responsibility to Limur, her care for her mother, the ups and downs of moods, at the studio, the serving her mother?
11. At the studio, the science fiction in space, the character of Amy at various ages? The range of actresses? Fabienne as Amy at 73? The rehearsals, Fabienne and her tantrums, performance, improvising, her pouting? The difficulties? The mediation of the director? Her experience with her daughter – and wanting to do a re-take to incorporate that feeling?
12. Fabienne, having to face realities, the walk with the dog, the restaurant, observing the Chinese family and the celebration, Luc and his family? Her talking with Manon, more gracious towards her?
13. The effect of the visit on the daughter and her husband, their talk, his drinking with Fabienne, the reality of his career?
14. The portrait of Charlotte, her love for her mother, her grandfather, with Fabienne, on the set in seeing the young actress and discussing with her?
15. The husband, his plans?
16. The experience on Limur, the memoir, her past, going back to America, the exploring of the mother daughter relationship?
17. The characters coming to come to some kind of resolution – openness towards the future?
