Agnes Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri are a wonderful filmmaking team -- they both write and act, she directs -- and apparently divorce has not hindered their collaboration. I loved their previous Taste of Others, and might have loved this one if I were more knowledgeable musically, since singing is at the center of the story, and there are no subtitles to translate music. From reviews I know it was Monteverdi, Haydn, and Schubert, but while it was certainly pleasing to my ear, there was a whole level of nuance that I was deaf to. At the center of the story is a 20-year-old singer, a fat girl with a disheveled emotional life, and her voice teacher, played by Jaoui herself. The girl’s father is Bacri, a monstrously self-involved writer and publisher, and the teacher’s husband is a writer whose sudden success brings him into the orbit of the crotchety Sun King. Many subsidiary characters are woven into the fabric of the story, but the pattern comes from the father-daughter push-and-pull, and whether she can achieve the velocity to escape his orbit. The Parisian literary milieu may be wearisome in a way, even when skillfully skewered, but the music, culminating in a performance in an ancient country church, offers an anodyne. Everyone is seeking attention, but few are capable of giving it. In art, however, it can be paid and repaid. If you’re a fan of Eric Rohmer’s talky but seductive comedies and tales, you should keep your eye on Jaoui and Bacri. (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-79, RT-88.)
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