VISAGE (FACE)
France, 2009, 138 minutes, Colour.
Fanny Ardant, Jean- Pierre Leaud, Laetitia Casta, Kang- Sheng Lee, Mathieu Amalric, Nathalie Baye, Jeanne Moreau.
Directed by Tsai Ming- Liang.
Tsai Ming- Liang is a great favourite with critics and festivals. He has won many prizes. His style often comprises long takes and intensely serious and silent interactions. One of his constant themes is sexuality.
Commissioned by the Louvre to make an art film, he has gone to France and constructed a work that would be seen to more advantage by an audience taking its time, re-viewing certain sequences, stopping to reflect, then moving on, were it an installation in a gallery. Each sequence is a single fixed camera take, a succession of moving image panels.
Plot is not important at all. Basically, a director (Tsai Ming- Liang's protege in all his films, Kang Sheng- Lee) is making a drama of Salome, Herod and the death of John the Baptist, emulating the art styles of how this Gospel sequence has been portrayed over the ages. Some panels focus on the director, his mother and his work for the film. Others focus on his actor for Herod, Jean- Pierre Leaud, a fragile character who needs communication and support. In the meantime, Fanny Ardant is acting as a producer. The model chosen to play Salome (Leetitia Casta) is getting into her role and cavorting provocatively.
This is a film for patience and surrender (which at the press screening at Cannes many refused to contemplate and made for the Exit). The scenes are composed, as one would expect, meticulously and artfully. Some of them, especially with Leaud, are quite moving and powerful, especially one of the longest takes where Fanny Ardant cares for him and a scar on his nose and Leaud finally speaks the words of Herod to Salome.
For an acquired and artistic taste.
1.The acclaim for Ming- Liang’s films? Expectations?
2.The impact, critical praise, audience tedium and walkouts? The film as an installation series? Needing a different kind of response from a film?
3.The title, the use of faces? The single takes, the length of the takes, the close-ups?
4.The Louvre commissioning the film, the artworks in the museum, the homage to the art? The scenes in the Louvre itself?
5.The musical score, the songs, those sung by Laetitia Casta as Salome?
6.The effect of 138 minutes of single takes, fixed camera, the compositions? The length, the effect on audiences watching, the detail, characters, language, silences, body language, movements, songs, the chorus, editing and pace?
7.A French production, the French cast?
8.Kang- Sheng Lee and his presence in Ming- Liang’s films? As a director, going to France, the scenes with his mother, her cooking, the flooding of the bathroom and the house, his mother’s illness, tending her, her portrait, mourning? His scenes with Antoine, with the producer, with Salome? The sexual encounter in the dark? Appearing naked? Carrying Salome’s dress? The deer, the finale and his trying to coax it back? In the bath, the covering, the tomato sauce, being John the Baptist? An Asian in Europe?
9.The sets, the Louvre itself, the apartment, the open squares, the interiors? The set with the snow and mirrors? The deer on the set? The sudden appearance of the dancers? The banquet hall? The rooms? The book about Francois Truffaut? The images of Jean- Pierre Leaud? The pipes, the elevator, the bath? The sewer pool?
10.Salome, the adaptation of the story? The intention of the director, the text, the dance, Herod and his speech, John the Baptist and his death?
11.Antoine as fragile, Jean- Pierre Leaud’s presence? The producer phoning to find him? His sitting in the snow, the injury to his nose, his playing with the bird, giving it to the director, with the deer? His moods, with the producer? Her tending his nose, his declaiming his speech as Herod? His costume, coming out of the crawlspace? Sketch of an eccentric character?
12.Fanny Ardant as the producer, busy, concerns about the personnel, in the snow, the loss of her shoe, her concern about the deer, carrying the deer head? The meal and meeting Jeanne Moreau and Nathalie Baye? Eating the apple, the book on Truffaut? Searching for the deer? Her caring for Antoine?
13.Laetitia Casta, the model, her clothes, body and sensual, the naked man in the pool, the death scene for John the Baptist?
14.The audience experience of sense impact, imagination, reflection?
