Die Liebenden

You've got it all, excepting a sad marriage, hubby's not interested, in your wagon or carriage, so you spend the weeks in Paris, watching polo has its merits, but at the weekend you return, to the disparage. Circumstances mean acquaintances will visit, a bit closer than just friends is Raoul Flores, but a breakdown on the way, causes detour and delay, and an extra guest now joins the home foray.

Jeanne Moreau, one of the most eye-catching actors of her day plays Jeanne Tournier, a woman oozing dissatisfaction with her home life in rural Dijon, wants to be dazzled by the sights and sounds of Paris, but has her attentions distracted quite unexpectedly when she is forced to arrange a weekend soirée in the marital mansion.

Fanciful stuff, and a little bit daft.

As a twenty-something, I saw this film with my boyfriend of the time, and as soon as it was over, we rushed home to do it ourselves. In the early-to-mid sixties, "Les Amants" was eroticism that was certainly explicit--albeit tastefully explicit, to our naive eyes. Made when Malle was twenty-five, with the young Jeanne Moreau, to the romantic Sextette that Brahams wrote when he was 27, this was the perfect sexy romance for its time and place.

I just saw it again, now watching as a sixty-something in an age in which "Les Amants" would probably get an R rating--and a tame one. I'm jaded too. It's hard to feel much sympathy for a desperate housewife of the upper middle class as she battles ennui. But the love sequence is still a knockout. You can't stop to think about it as the lovers, who as yet barely know each other except for their terrific physical attraction, go from garden-to-boat- to bedroom; it's still erotic in its implication. the garden is too lovely to be true, the boat is white and clean, and Moreau wears her pearl necklace throughout, but the message of a woman who has only known pedestrian sex being introduced for the first time to the Real Thing rang a bell with me (I had a similar experience, minus the garden, the pearls and the boat). I sat there bawling my head off-- with nostalgia this time for an unrecoverable experience-- through the whole sequence.

But the ending also rings true. What do you do when you come up for air?

From one of the interviews on the CD, I learned that the plot was based on an 18th century story, and I can readily see that, just as could see the fin-de-siècle Viennese origin of Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut." In neither case does the contemporary updating of the tales make them any less effective.

In this, director Louis Malle's second film, which for awhile seems like it will be another high society soap opera, a seemingly arbitrary plot detour occurs that places the beautiful Jeanne Moreau in a situation all the less convenient and all the more frustrating because of how accustomed she has become to her privilege. Consequently, Moreau is less like a Sex and the City character and more of a realization that a social ladder does not leave problems below it. They follow you from decision to decision to decision. And the further up it she climbs, the less considerate her decisions seem to be of the world outside of herself.

As a 25-year-old French director at the dawn of the New Wave, he was not alone in satirizing and criticizing the bourgeoisie. Ironically, being younger than fellow Nouveau filmmakers Godard and Truffaut, as well as having been born into a wealthy industrialist family, had no hand in blinding him by way of his privileged ego. Watching this biting romantic drama about adultery and the reality and illusion of rediscovering love, I see that Malle understood the upper-class freedom of never having to worry about tomorrow, and not only does he characterize it with an almost humorously frustrating edge, he wisely satirizes love at first sight.

The movie was made in 1958, but Malle's style has yet to garner an expiration date. There are no outdated lap dissolves or screen wipes or quick fade-outs. The controversy at the time surrounding this film's alleged obscenity had a rebounding effect on the flimsy subjectivity of society's accusations. He was simply being honest, which he is in the aforementioned portrayals beyond the simple night of passionate love Moreau has with her lover. Instead of a coy imitation of a spectator blushing and looking away, as many other films did and still do when the camera moves to the window or the ceiling, Malle fixates on her ecstasy. Even now, rarely do we see a close shot of a woman's sexual pleasure.

A bit like Woody Allen would come to do in a few decades, Malle tends to saturate his soundtracks with a single composer. Here, it is Johannes Brahms, whose music is a brilliantly and acutely intuitive choice for the film since, much like the characters, he has a classical sense of form and order yet he's bold in his exploration of harmony and rhythm.

The bored and empty upper-class Jeanne Tournier (Jeanne Moreau) lives in a manor with many servants in the countryside of Dijon with her husband Henri Tournier (Alain Cuny) and their daughter Catherine. Henri is the editor of The Burgundy Monitor and has been married to Jeanne for eight years, but he does not give much attention to his wife. Jeanne travels frequently to the house of her childhood friend Maggy Thiebaut-Leroy (Judith Magre) in Paris to meet her lover, the famous polo player Raoul Flores (José Villalonga).

One day, Henri suspects of the frequent trips of Jeanne to Paris and invites Maggy and Raoul Flores to have dinner and spend the weekend in his mansion. While driving back home from Paris, Jeanne car breaks down and the archaeologist Bernard Dubois-Lambert (Jean-Marc Bory) that is going to Montbard to visit a professor, gives a ride to Jeanne. Henri invites Bernard to stay with them and during the night, he has a love affair with Jeanne. On the next morning, Jeanne decides to go away from Henri, Catherine and Raoul with her new lover.

"Les Amants" is the second film of Louis Malle and I can imagine the impact of this amoral story in 1958, with a mother leaving her daughter to seek true love with her younger lover. The muse of many filmmakers Jeanne Moreau is gorgeous and sensual in the role of a woman ahead her time needy for love and happiness. The cinematography in black and white is wonderful and the open conclusion fits perfectly to this sensual film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Amantes" ("The Lovers")

This is my first Louis Malle film and I found myself really quite disappointed. One of the other posters says that the theme is about freedom and uncertainty. I would agree with this, but to be blunt a better way to learn about the subject would be to listen to the Brahms' String Sextets without the film.

Jeanne Moreau has been described in this movie as inscrutable, I'd agree with that, in this film we find out absolutely nothing of interest about her character, and I'm left perplexed as to the attraction Bernard had for her (purely libidinous?). The morality of the film is very confusing, certainly we can applaud Jeanne's existential urge to escape from her stifling fling, her marriage, and her Parisienne lifestyle, but the fact that she leaves her daughter behind is execrable. The woodland scenes are intriguing but a bit too contrived. If you want to see films about relationships I would suggest most of the oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman, which is far superior.

All in all a rather insipid, though beautiful, mess. Deserves 7 out of 10 because it is provocative and like all good art, subversive.