What is it about French films that
always seem to end before I've finished watching them? For
some reason I keep expecting more to happen than often does,
and such was the case with La Guerre Est Finie (The
War Is Over). Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as
it does cause one to reevaluate what one has just seen to try
and make sense of things, but it does strike me as odd given
my conditioning to tidy endings where all is resolved. Despite
feeling somewhat abrupt, I do like this style for some strange
reason.
French New Wave director Alain Resnais began
his film career with a series of shorts highlighting artists
and art related subjects. His 1948 Van Gogh received an
Academy Award. In 1955 Resnais directed his chilling
concentration camp featurette, Night And Fog. His first
feature, Hiroshima, Mon Amour won the Cannes Film
Festival International Critics Prize for its provocative ideas
and innovative styling. The themes of memory, which play a
recurring role in Resnais' films, were the center piece in his
second film, L'Ann¨¦e derni¨¨re ˆÝ Marienbad (Last Year
At Marianbad), in which the male lead insists he has had
an affair the previous year with a woman he just met. This
preoccupation with memory returns in La Guerre Est
Finie, as the story is conveyed through the central
character in a series of thought like montages, piecing
together the past from brief snippets of information, real or
imagined. If you have never seen the film, skip the synopsis
as it contains some unavoidable spoilers.
Yves Montand
(Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources) is Diego, though
when we meet him he is travelling under an alias, hoping to
catch a train to Paris while fleeing Spain, where news has
forced him to take this urgent trip. When they reach the
police checkpoint at the border they are detained and
questioned. He produces his passport, and supplies the police
with his home phone number, a number which belongs to a family
he knows everything about, but has never met. The young girl
who answers plays the part of his daughter, though he can only
imagine what she looks like. Back en route, things start to
become explained, there have been arrests in Madrid, and Diego
has to stop one of the leaders of their cause from going to
Spain. In case the police follow up the border incident he
finally heads to his fictitious home, to make arrangements for
the passport to be available to the real Mr. Sallanches. Here
he meets his daughter, Nadine (Genevi¨¨ve Bujold in her debut
performance), and an attraction is immediate. She asks his
real name. He answers "Domingo". We next see him at his home,
where his wife, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) is busy with
coworkers, some of whom are unfamiliar to Diego, who has been
absent the past six months. His life is a series of
deceptions, and he avoids complete disclosure even with his
mate, suspicious of her friends. We will finally learn what he
is up to, what this news has been, and what he will do about
it, but there are many things left unresolved.
Camera
movement and editing are everything in this film, and are used
to great effect. For the first quarter of the presentation, a
succession of scenes where the camera pulls out and
immediately cuts to a push in first detaches the viewer then
draws them in for the follow-up. Rapid cuts of disjointed
information hint at possibilities occurring, as thoughts jump
through one's mind. The camera sweeps around corners, down
corridors, or follows the subjects through the streets with a
noticable grace. There is a lot of confusion and mystique - we
see faces of characters we aren't introduced to, or montages
of a girl walking down the street, though she is actually
several women as she passes by, as though the viewer is trying
to imagine her appearance, and is auditioning characters for
the role. We see bits of information about places that are
known from text to the character, but are only his imaginings
when seen. We are not given complete images, or complete
information. Much is left to be inferred by the viewer. There
is a disorientation, as when one hears only parts of a story,
the gaps need to be filled in by the imagination. Sequences of
the film have their dialogue narrated over by screenwriter
Jorge Semprˆ†n), giving the present the perception of being in
the past. There are also two highly stylised love/sex scenes,
though in the case of the first, we are not certain whether
this is real or imagined. Such is the case with much of the
film. This will either be appreciated for its style, or be
frustrating, depending on your viewpoint.
La Guerre
Est Finie is a very artistic piece, which will either
resonate with the viewer or alienate them. While the ending
felt somewhat ambiguous, I must say that I did enjoy the style
more than the substance of this film, though as its images
still haunt me, I'm sure my appreciation will grow with
time.
From
DIGITALLYOBSESSED
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