Worth: $14.00
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Cast:
Anaïs Demoustier, Vincent Lacoste, Morgan Bailey
Intro:
Tender and intensely human …
The story of an ever-evolving love affair told across decades between rich college boy Francois (Vincent Lacoste) and working-class single mother Madeliene (Anaïs Demoustier), who cross paths when her wilful child Daniel, determined to run headlong into the waves, slips her hold on a secluded French seashore. What begins as the heroic act of a good Samaritan leads to a grand tale of romance and tragedy that spans a lifetime.
Co-written by Gilles Taurand and director Katell Quillévéré, the story is loosely inspired by Quillévéré’s grandmother, who like Madeleine, kept the secret of her eldest child’s paternity close to her chest for much of her life. An echo of Quillévéré’s own family history, Madeleine’s son Daniel is the product of an affair with a German soldier who returned to the Front during World War II and left Madeleine pregnant, jaded and alone.
This is just the first of many secrets to be aired between the couple — a late night visit from a young man that Francois knew from his college days reveals his own complicated past and exposes his bisexual proclivities, the cause of many a rift between the couple during the ensuing years.
The depiction of a slowly unspooling passage of time that feels expansive yet unhurried in its execution, Quillévéré touches on sensitive themes of belonging and sexual politics in post-war France. Rather than resorting to grand, all-encompassing statements about society as a whole, however, the film instead narrows its focus down to two very specific individual lives, the incredibly personal choices they must make, and the repercussions that those decisions hold for the lives they’ve touched along the way.
The performances of the cast are both moving and melodramatic, while the evocative visuals of 1950s Paris provide a heady backdrop of swirling light and colour to set the scene.
The historical setting, at times nostalgic, at other times brutal in its honesty, is given authenticity via the use of archive material depicting the aggressive horrors visited upon those caught colluding with German soldiers, or in Madeleine’s case, accidentally falling pregnant to one. It’s a confronting prologue, and one that establishes a defiant atmosphere which Quillévéré continues to cultivate throughout the rest of the film.
Tender and intensely human, the story of Madeleine and Francois’ search for happiness is a timeless one, told with empathy and determination, with Lacoste and Demoustier doing an admirable job of navigating the script’s more clumsy, theatrical moments.
