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La Vie est un Roman
Life is a Bed of Roses
France 1983
produced by Philippe Dussart for Soprofilms, Films A2, Fideline Films, les Films Ariane, Filmédis
directed by Alain Resnais
starring Vittorio Gassman, Ruggero Raimondi, Geraldine Chaplin, Fanny Ardant, Pierre Arditi, Sabine Azéma, Robert Manuel, Samson Fainsilber, Véronique Silver, André Dussollier, Guillaume Boisseau, Sabine Thomas, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Rodolphe Schacher, Jean-Claude Arnaud, Lucienne Hamon, Jean-Louis Richard, Hélène Patarot, Flavie Ducorps, Jean-Claude Corbel, Jean-Michel Dupuis, Michel Muller, Philippe Laudenbach, Cathy Berberian
screenplay by Jean Gruault, music by M. Philippe-Gérard, production design by Enki Bilal, Jacques Saulnier, costume design by Enki Bilal, Catherine Leterrier
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Three stories that are somehow linked and are told parallel to each
other. 1914: Count Forbek (Ruggero Raimondi) wants to make his proposed
castle into a new utopia and deems himself suitable to be the master of
this utopia, a place of pure harmony - even though he's unable to have a
harmonic relationship with his own father (Samson Fainsilber) or conquer
the heart of Livia (Fanny Ardant), the woman he loves. The war of course
interrupts the Count's aspirations, but in 1919, he welcomes a circle of
friends to his utopia, and he persuades them to take drugs to completely
wipe out their minds, then subjects them to various treatments - that
eventually kill some of them. Livia is among the Count's chosen ones, but
she has secretly avoided the drugs and she only eventually makes that
known to the count when she can't find her fiancé (André Dussollier) -
also a chosen one - anymore and has to find out he has died due to the
Count's treatments. Eventually, she and the Count get into a fight at the
end of which she stakes him. 1982: Forbek's castle has since become a
boarding school for rich kids, and its owner madame Holberg (Véronique
Silver) has delusions about the importance of the school, even though it
only houses a mere three kids, and even those are pretty much out of
control. Madame Holberg regards her school that important in fact that she
holds a conference about the future of education on its premises, a
conference where everybody has long, clichéed talks about nothing in
particular, and everybody argues about something that's completely besides
the point. Nora Winkle (Geraldine Chaplin) has attended countless such
conferences, mainly because she has a sexual relationship with these
conferences' recurring guest of honour Walter Guarini (Vittorio Gassman),
at so many conferences in fact that they bore her out of her mind. So she
makes a bet with Claudine (Martine Kelly), one of the school's teachers:
She bets that naive conference newbie Élisabeth (Sabine Azéma) will land
in bed with Robert (Pierre Arditi), another teacher of the school, and a
sex buddy of Claudine's. From now on, Nora manipulates both Élisabeth and
Robert and thinks she plays them like pawns, even if all her scheming
sabotages the whole conference ... but in the end, Élisabeth doesn't only
lose her bet, but she also loses her Walter Guarini to plain little
Élisabeth ... On the third narrative level, the kids of the school (all
three of them) have created their own fantasy world, since the world of
the grown-ups and their discussions about their education do not
include them ... If I had to sum up this film in a catchphrase,
it would probably be "arthouse at its funniest" - my point is,
essentially this movie is what one would call (in lack of a better word)
an arthouse flick with all its surreal elements, disregard of genre
conventions or even distinct genre affiliation (this film is everything,
horror, science fiction, fantasy, musical, romantic comedy, ...), and its
very high-brow concepts. Which is so special about this film though is
that it doesn't take itself too seriously (without making fun of itself or
the audience though), remains playful throughout and ever so often veers
off into the most unexpected directions with no actual reason whatsoever.
Add to that the great sets and costumes courtesy of famed comicbook artist
Bilal, and you are left with a masterpiece, and something that's like
nothing you have seen before.
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