CONVERSATIONS WITH OTHER WOMEN
US, 2006, 87 minutes, Colour.
Aaron Eckhart, Helena Bonham Carter.
Directed by Hans Canosa
Apparently, this film was shot in thirteen days, though it looks as if it had a bigger budget and time and room to move. This is especially the case when we see that the whole film (85 minutes) is actually shown with split screen all the way through.
This device is important because the film is basically a two-hander. We are looking at each character on each side of the screen but from different angles from the single close-ups with the editing alternating one face with the other that is the usual staple of cinema conversations. Then characters move from their side of the screen into the frame on the other side. The alternate side of the screen is also used for flashback glimpses as well as imaginary moments where we can watch the image as well as the character remembering or imagining. It also means that supporting characters can also move in and out of frames giving a sense that we are watching the action in more real space and time.
This is the technical side of things.
In terms of theme, this is basically an interaction and conversation between two people, both nearing forty, who meet at a wedding reception. He seems to be pursuing her. She seems to be indifferent. Soon after the conversation begins (with the reception, speeches, dancing, going on around them) and we hear their stories from the past, we realise that they had been married. One side of the screen then begins a series of flashbacks from their past. We get to know them well, likeable qualities as well as characteristics which are alienating. A comic scene with the wedding photographer, ‘videographer’, where each is supposed to offer a message to bride and groom quickly reveals who they are and much more about them.
As they spend the night together in the hotel before she returns to London where she now lives, we also learn about their present relationships, about his dancer girlfriend and about her doctor husband and the stepchildren.
Of course, the dynamic of the drama is: will they or won’t they now come together again.
He is played with a mixture of charm, cynicism and roguery by Aaron Eckhart. She is played with a mixture of honesty, confusion and beauty by Helena Bonham Carter.
The themes are not analysed very deeply, but as they are dramatised, many in the audience may well identity with them.
1.The title, expectations? The woman herself – as another woman in the eyes of the man after so many years?
2.The verbal quality of the film, discussions, conversation? Edge and irony?
3.The visual impact of the film: the use of the split screen throughout, characters moving from one frame to another, the flashbacks in alternate frames? The musical score?
4.The effect on the storytelling, the focus on each of the characters at the same time, their talk, reactions, in their space, in each other’s space? The echoes of the present in the flashbacks?
5.The wedding reception, the woman and her wanting to smoke, the man at the bar, his appraisal, approach, talk, flirtatious? The intrusion? The audience not knowing the truth? When did the audience know, the irony, their speaking about each other in the third person?
6.The scenes of the wedding, the bride and groom, the bridesmaids, the dancing?
7.The videographer, his taking the films, his talk, the set-up, asking the man and the woman for their comments, rejecting them? His being the occasion for the revelation about the truth?
8.The past, their marriage, the glimpse of the flashback after they were six months married, at the beach, her reading the book, his not being able to remember the title? The drink, dancing, life, their relationship, the sexuality scenes?
9.The explanation of the break-up, his being a lawyer, fidelity and infidelity, her leaving? Going abroad?
10.The man’s relationship with the dancer, talk about her, the imagination of her as a pole dancer, the truth about her being on Broadway, the phone calls?
11.The woman marrying the doctor, his children, the photos, the phone call, his voice, the gifts for the children?
12.The sexual attraction, going up in the elevator, the bridesmaid and her suspicions, making the phone call to the dancer? The dancer calling back, the switching of phones and mix-up, the woman being able to answer the dancer clearly and well?
13.The sexual encounter and its effect?
14.His opening up, wanting to talk, the irony that she was having a shower – did she hear him or not?
15.The decision to leave, the effect on each?
16.Going to the taxi, in the cab, the merging of the frames, together? For the future or not?
17.Themes of men, women, relationships, marriage, marriage souring, separation, relationships, remarriage?
