Coming Soon

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Characters suppressing volcanic emotions that can be decoded only by reading expressions and body language give Stéphane Brizé’s “Mademoiselle Chambon” a complexity and tension that transcend words. A questioning look exchanged and held for a half-second, the trembling of a lower lip, a stride that is a little too purposeful, a conversation that breaks into an uncomfortable silence: these are the signs of potentially life-altering choices and incipient chaos seething under the placid surfaces of bourgeois lives.

For much of this exquisitely acted film, which examines a possible love affair and its consequences, its three main characters — Jean (Vincent Lindon), a mason; his wife, Anne Marie (Aure Atika), who works in a book factory; and Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain), their son’s unmarried grammar school teacher — carry on a romantic triangle that is barely acknowledged.

The story, adapted from a novel by Eric Holder, with a screenplay by Mr. Brizé and Florence Vignon, couldn’t be simpler. The happily married Jean falls under the spell of Véronique after being invited to the class of his son, Jérémy, to talk about his occupation. Afterward, when Véronique asks him to look at a broken window frame in her house, he repairs it, and when the work is completed, cajoles Véronique, a former professional violinist, to play for him with her back turned, because she is so shy.

The strains of a romantic melody by the Hungarian composer Ferenc von Vecsey awaken a buried longing in him. At their next chance meeting in a hardware store, she invites him home for a beer, and they share a passionate kiss. But where the relationship may lead remains uncertain, especially after Anne Marie tells Jean that she is pregnant.

The performances by Mr. Lindon and Ms. Kiberlain, who were once married, are so completely lived-in that you feel that you know them intimately, despite the paucity of dialogue. Jean is a traditional family man devoted to his frail 80-year-old father, whom he visits regularly in a retirement home, where he lovingly washes the old man’s feet.

When anxious, Jean drives to a windy bluff overlooking his small town to mull over his problems. Because Jean is uneducated, Véronique, who comes from an affluent Parisian family, has a cultural refinement that stirs in him a latent discontent with his settled working-class existence.

Véronique is a contradictory mixture of shy and steely. She has chosen an itinerant life in which she moves from town to town in France, never staying in one place for more than a year. During her conversations with Jean, she has the alert gaze of a nervous deer pricking its ears in alarm at the slightest noise.

Staring out at the world with a steady, unsmiling gaze, she has the faintly wistful air of a woman familiar with romantic disappointment but not so embittered that she has completely given up hope of finding love. To follow through on their attraction would have potentially cataclysmic implications for both Jean and Véronique, but especially for Jean, for whom it would be a leap into the unknown.

The movie’s sparse dialogue is broken with silences in which the sounds and images of the world outside the characters lend everything that is said an extra weight. Jean’s description to the schoolchildren of how to build a house could be a lecture on how to build a comfortable, bourgeois life on a solid foundation. When Jean, in a state of turmoil, sits alone on the bluff, the strong wind surging through the trees evokes his inner conflict. And when Véronique plays the violin, the sweetly plaintive melody is the pure expression of a lonely soul adrift, yearning for an elusive inner peace.

“Mademoiselle Chambon” belongs to a long line of French films exploring desire and the consequences of acting on it. In spirit it is especially close to Eric Rohmer films like “Claire’s Knee,” in which a seemingly careless caress has life-changing moral implications. This small, nearly perfect film is a reminder that personal upheavals are as consequential in people’s lives as shattering world events.

Copyright 2001 New YOrk Times

Small-scale but big-hearted French romance packs a wallop

By Stephen Farber

The simplest of stories can be elevated by first-rate acting and directing. Consider Stephane Brize's "Mademoiselle Chambon," a French film that achieves a subtle but devastating impact. It tells a familiar story of an extramarital romance, but what makes it unusual, especially among French films, is that the couple spend most of the movie fighting rather than surrendering to their attraction. Think of it as a latter-day "Brief Encounter," another repressed romantic classic with lots of classical music on the soundtrack.

Jean (Vincent Lindon) is a construction worker happily married to Anne-Marie (Aurore Atika). But when he happens to meet his son's teacher, Mademoiselle Veronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain), his whole universe is turned upside down. The teacher is also a violinist, and when Jean hears her play, he is enchanted. The fragile, ethereal Veronique is quite unlike his earthy wife, and Jean has a rugged masculinity that obviously intrigues the sheltered schoolteacher. Both Jean and Veronique resist the attraction, especially when Jean learns that his wife is expecting a second child. Shattered by his apparent rejection, Veronique decides to leave town, and this brings the romantic triangle to a climax.

Brize favors static compositions involving very long takes, and while such a measured style can often be deadly, "Chambon" is riveting. This is partly because of sharp, unexpected touches in the writing. (The adaptation of Eric Holder's novel is by Brize and Florence Vignon.) All of the characters burst out of stereotype. The apparently macho Jean proves to have a gentle, hesitant side that only makes him more appealing. He is devoted to his aging father, and in one scene laced with delicate humor, father and son visit a funeral home to make advance payment on the father's casket.

In addition to unpredictable writing, the film is enhanced by perfectly modulated performances from all the actors, including Arthur Le Houerou as Jean's curious young son. Many of the best moments depend on unspoken reactions that Brize's eloquent camera captures. When Jean invites Veronique to play a piece by Elgar at his father's birthday party, he stands transfixed and shaken by her performance; the film then cuts to a close-up of Jean's wife observing him, and she recognizes the threat to her marriage just in these few moments of rapt silence.

As the relationships move toward a resolution, the tension builds expertly. The final sequence at a train station benefits from superb editing. By the end of this modest but compelling film, viewers are likely to feel at once drained and deeply satisfied.

Copyright 2010 Hollywood Reporter