ECOUTE LE TEMPS
France, 2005, 87 minutes, Colour.
Emilie Dequenne, Ludmila Mikael, Mathieu Demy, Bruno Flender.
Directed by Alante Kavaite.
Before seeing this French drama, I thought the title meant being alert to the times. However, the title is dramatised literally. The central character actually listens in to particular times in the past.
Charlotte (Emilie Dequenne) has left home, clashing with her mother who has a psychic gift. She can see the future. On Charlotte's return, they almost crash the car when her mother hits an animal on the road, panics and flees. There is a reason for this which we gradually discover.
Charlotte goes back to her work which is recording exotic sounds in strange and distant locations. She is told that her mother has been murdered, so she returns home, is dissatisfied with the police investigation and tries to solve the mystery herself. She does because she also has a psychic gift. With her equipment she can, in different parts of a room, hear the conversations from the past. She criss-crosses the room with strings and labels identifying particular days and times and so listens in, learns who the suspects could be, hears her mother's conversations with them and eventually identifies the killer who has been responsible for the hit-run killing of a child which was the cause of the upset to the mother when she struck the animal on the road.
So, this is a drama of the paranormal, played quite realistically, a drama of relationships and of Charlotte coming to understand her mother and to understand herself. Lowkey but effective.
1.An interesting drama? Supernatural overtones? Science? Mystery?
2.The French style, the provincial town, the road and the countryside, the rain, the old house, the town, the greenhouse? An authentic atmosphere? The contrast with the barren landscapes where Charlotte was doing her research for sounds? The musical score?
3.The title, and its literal meaning, with Charlotte listening to particular moments of time?
4.The prologue, Charlotte and her mother, the tension between them, the accident, hitting the deer, the mother and her running away, Charlotte and her looking at the animal still breathing? Their talk at home?
5.Charlotte, having left home, the tension with her mother, her mother's gifts of foresight? Charlotte and her work, the sounds, the equipment? Receiving the news of her mothers death?
6.Her arrival home, her grief for her mother, the past, her own gifts? The psychic gifts in the family? Her hearing the record, discovering that she could hear sounds and time? Her decision to set up the web of string, the paper with the dates and times, moving the paper up and down, making precise contact with particular past times? Listening to the various discussions? Reconstructing what happened?
7.Charlotte as a character, driven, her motivation, understanding her mother, understanding herself?
8.The police, discussions with Charlotte, the investigation leading nowhere?
9.The issue of water, the environment, the issues of money, the mayor and the town, the mother and the conversations with her opposition to the scheme?
10.The character of Jerome, at home, in himself, awkward, his love for the mother? His being a suspect? Innocent?
11.The killer, his relationship with the mother, his love for her? The discussions, his own mother? The mother and her foresight? The accident, the hit-run, burying the body? The atmosphere in the town about the boy who disappeared? The confrontation, killing the mother? Charlotte confronting him? The greenhouse?
12.The rain, the house, its collapsing? Charlotte and her confrontation of the killer? His attack? The police arriving?
13.The solution to what had happened, the use of symbols of sound, psychic understanding, the rain, the collapsing house? Charlotte understanding herself?
