NYFF Opening Night - Wild Grass

For the start of this year's NYFF I thought I'd change the design of this blog to something a little easier to read and, I hope, more aesthetically pleasing than the previous bright green.

Opening Night at the New York Film Festival was Alain Resnais's beautiful Wild Grass (Les herbes folles). Richard Pena introduced the producers, composer Mark Snow, actors Andre Dussollier and Mathieu Amalric (it was great to see them from the sixth row center), and finally Resnais himself, who received a standing ovation and gave a brief, charming introduction. This film will probably separate the hardcore Resnais admirers like myself from casual French filmgoers who may see it as a lightweight romantic comedy. It's really much more than that.

A simple story of a stolen purse and wallet that brings together five major characters, in Resnais's hands becomes a richly detailed study of l'amour fou, romantic obsession, cinema and memory. Resnais's graceful camera movements, bright colors and unmistakable editing rhythms are the work of a playful master. Frequent inserts of Sabine Azema's stolen yellow purse flying through the air and of Dussollier's hand picking up her bright red wallet serve to link them together almost against their conscious will. Resnais has expressed admiration for director Arnaud Desplechin, evident here in his use of Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos as young sidekicks in the wacky love story of Resnais veterans Azema and Dussollier (with Anne Consigny as Dussollier's younger wife who has no choice but to go along on this strange ride).

This is also an homage to American movies, as Azema and Dussollier first meet outside a cinema and we hear the famous 20th Century Fox fanfare. The fanfare returns in a later romantic scene between the two, with the word fin appearing onscreen as they finally embrace. It's a false ending, however, as they are about to take off in Azema's private plane for a looping daredevil flight which becomes a dazzlingly subjective aerial view, ending in a child's bedroom with a baffling non sequitur line. This time the fin is real. It reminded me of the astonishing ending of Mon Oncle d'Amerique and parts of Providence in its formal daring and beauty.