LES HERBES FOLLES (WILD GRASS)
France, 2009, 104 minutes, Colour.
Sabine Azema, Andre Dussollier, Anne Consigny, Emmanuel De Vos, Mathieu Amalric.
Directed by Alain Resnais.
Alain Resnais has an enormous reputation as a film-maker. With his 1955 short film, Night and Fog, about the concentration camps, he became a force in documentary film-making (at the age of twenty-three). His classic films of the 1960s including Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad, Muriel, The War is Over, were considered classics of French cinema of the period. In the 70s he made significant films like Stavisky and Providence. However, from the 1980s, he tended to move into more romantic, light and comic themes. Which means then that in his eighties, he actually made films which were much more soufflés than the substantial films that he used to make: Same Old Song, Not on the Lips, Private Fears and Public Places and this film, Wild Grass.
The film tends to be realistic until the end when it becomes rather surreal. It focuses on an incident where a woman’s bag is stolen, an older man finds her wallet in a parking lot and returns it to the police. What follows is a strange encounter, the obsession by the man with pursuing the woman, sight unseen, writing her letters and trying to get them back, phone calls. The woman, a dentist as well as a pilot in her spare time, is bewildered. So is the man’s wife. So is the other dentist working in partnership with the woman who lost her wallet. The police are also involved.
The film relies on some flippancy, lightness of touch, comic interpretations – and some existential dialogue, questions about the meaning of life, and the intricacies of language.
Resnais has an excellent cast led by Andre Dussollier, always reliable. Sabine Azema is sometimes irritating – and her red hair in this film looks as if she has seen too many ghosts or experienced electric shock. Anne Consigny is charming as Dussollier’s wife. In the supporting cast are top-liners, Emmanuel De Vos as the dentist and Matthieu Amalric as the police officer.
The film works on a light level, probing ageing, relationships, generations (with the children of the older couple coming to dinner). There is also acknowledgment of cinema as the older man goes to see The Bridges at Toko-Ri?, assessing it from the time that he saw it as a boy.
The film ends quite surrealistically, the central characters on a flight – and a crash. While there had been an embrace with Fin on the screen, there is another ending about a little girl speaking about something entirely different which leaves the audience up in the air.
1.A frothy entertainment? Very French? Wit, comedy, surrealism?
2.The work of the director? From the 1950s, his reputation for serious films? In his eighties? Comedy and slight films?
3.France, the settings, the city, the shops, the police station, parking lots, homes, cinema, restaurants? The musical score?
4.The aviation background? Georges and his knowledge, his background of planes? Marguerite and her pilot’s licence? The aerial sequences at the end?
5.The voice-over, the old man, his comments, style, memory lapses…?
6.Marguerite, the focus on her feet, buying the shoes, enjoying the experience, her purse being stolen, her going home, having a bath? Her excitement at its being returned? Her contacting the police, finding out the identity, ringing him? Her work as a dentist? Her skills as a pilot?
7.Georges, his age, shopping, getting the batteries for his watch, finding the wallet? His imagination? His references to killing and his hesitation? His existential language, asking questions, meaning of life, meaning of language? His relationship with his wife, her getting him to mow the lawn? Going to the police, the impression on the police, his way of speaking? The phone call from Marguerite, contacting her, writing the letter, attacking her for not giving a reward, the letter of apology, trying to get it back? The neighbour giving it to her? The phone calls, the letters, the questions, going over his conduct and behaviour? Qualifying things? The visit, staking out the house, slashing the tyres and leaving the note? The effect on him, on her?
8.Suzanne, her work, age, the dinner with the family, her patience with Georges, talking with Marguerite on the phone, the visits of Marguerite? Her puzzle about her husband?
9.Josepha, her work as a dentist, friendship with Marguerite, sharing with her, the patients, Marguerite and causing pain, Josepha taking over her clients? Going to the theatre, Marguerite’s insistence in going to Georges’ house? Her interaction with Georges? Her taking the family to the plane?
10.The Bridges at Toko- Ri, Georges going to see it, Marguerite driving to the cinema, having the coffee, waiting, talking with him, their clash? Her determination to go to his house, Josepha driving her, coming in with Georges, her talks with Suzanne?
11.The flight, everybody going to the airport, Marguerite and her friendship with the men, the buying of the plane, her going to sleep in the plane, their rousing her? Her taking people on joyrides? Taking Georges, letting him steer, the acrobatics?
12.The aerial photography, the plane and its movements, the crash?
13.The finale, the kiss with the 20th Century-Fox? anthem? ‘Fin’ coming on screen? The postscript with the little girl and her relevant, irrelevant comment?
14.The title, the images of grass: flip, frivolity, soufflé?
