LE TEMPS QUI RESTE

France, 2005, 85 minutes, Colour.
Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Daniel Duval, Marie Rivier, Christian Sengewald, Louise Anne Hippeau.
Directed by Francois Ozon.

Francois Ozon is becoming a prolific director, a film a year in recent years. And it is impossible to predict what he will come up with next. He has done the musical 8 Women, the psychological crime thriller, Swimming Pool and the disintegration of a marriage, 5x2.

With Time to Leave – more accurately and literally, The Time that Remains – Ozon says he is in process of making a trilogy about death. Sous le Sable was an effectively sombre film about loss and grief and he intends to make a film about the death of a child. In the meantime, this is the final months of a young photographer who has cancer.

Romain (Melvil Poupaud) is an abrasive man. He clashes fiercely with his motherly sister, alienates his boyfriend, has on again, off again moments with his parents. When he receives the news of his illness, he takes leave from work, stays alone, reflecting. The only person he tells is his empathetic grandmother, a warm performance from Jeanne Moreau. He does take pictures of his sister and children after he reconciles with her on the phone. He does help arrange a job for his boyfriend. Most strangely, he is asked by a kindly woman he meets at a café (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi?, star of 5x2) to father her child since her husband is sterile. He does this, not in any calculating way. Rather, this surrogacy involves him with the human race in a way that he has not up till now. He does have something, someone who will mark his presence in the world.

Ozon is particularly sensitive to the emotions of his characters and the complexities of their relationships. It is true here. He includes an unusual scene in a church where Romain lights a candle and remembers a gross prank with his friend and a dawning of his sexual orientation. This is a film about mortality that affirms life.

1.The films of Ozon? The range of films and styles, subjects?

2.Ozon’s sensitivity to people, to relationships, to gay men, to issues of illness and death?

3.The Paris settings, Romain as a photographer, his eye’s view of Paris? The apartments, the streets, the clubs and cafes? The transition to Brittany? The beaches? The beach house? The doctor and the medical settings? The musical score – and religious motifs?

4.The title, the time remaining for Romain with his illness? The time remaining for his relatives and friends and their time with him?

5.Romain, as a personality, likable or not? Self-centred, self-absorbed? His age, career, achievement? His relationship with Sascha, its ups and downs? The gay man and his behaviour and attitudes? Fidelity and commitment – or not? His work as a photographer, his career? His physical collapse? The visit to the doctor, the diagnosis, his handling the news? His decisions about his illness and what he would do? His farewells? His retracing his life’s journey? His refusing chemotherapy?

6.His not telling others about his illness? The effect on them after when they learnt the truth? Whether they would feel guilty, regrets? His continuing isolation, loneliness, time to reflect? Wanting to recapture the past and its meaning? His cruel attitudes, merciful attitudes and kind? The possibilities for reconciliation?

7.The portrait of his family, Sophie and the tensions with her? Her character, her children? In the park? The power of the phone call? Her attitude towards his photographing her and the children? His relationship with his mother, her sensitivity towards him? The father, the drive? His challenge to his father, his father’s past affairs? The fact that his parents did not divorce? His father accepting him? Their talk, the embrace?

8.His relationship with Sascha, Sascha as a personality? The sexual encounters? His ousting him? Hurting him? His character and the future? The meeting, getting a job? Sexual activity or not? Raimon photographing him sleeping?

9.The world of the gay clubs, sexuality, style? The possibility of AIDS?

10.The visit to his grandmother, her strong personality, talking with him, the bond between the two, the memories of her treatment of him in the past? The truth? His nearing death? His sleeping, his farewell to his grandmother? Jeanne Moreau as the grandmother, strength of performance, the back-story giving depth to the character?

11.Meeting Jany and her husband? Their talking, the later encounter? The decision to propose the surrogate parenting? His attitude towards children? His change? The discussions of the matter? The character of Jany, the character of her husband, the effect of this experience on each of them? The sexual encounter, the impregnation? His will and the meeting? The purpose of this act of kindness? His humanity? His taking his place in the human race? A trace of his existence? An air?

12.The continuing illness, the importance of his visit to the church, the religious connotations, morality? His memories? The role of religion?

13.The sequences on the beach, his swimming, the effect of the water? His death?

14.The effect of his death? The themes of terminal illness, especially for a person in his thirties, professional man, a man alone? The reality of cancer? Themes of hope, life, human dignity?