Stéphane Brizé's "Mademoiselle Chambon" is basically a remake of "Brief Encounter", a love affair between Jean (Lindon) a rugged handyman and his son's teacher, Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kimberlain). Not a melodrama but a character study that questions the notion of faithfulness, exposing it in a way so that we never condemn it. Whatever is wrong never strikes as malicious but rather an uncontrollable attraction between two opposites.
As usual, Brizé trusts our patience... for all the slow and silent moment during the exposition, there's never a feeling of wasted time, or dullness. We see Jean working in masonry and carpentry... he built houses and the steady foundations of family life. The first scene shows him in a picnic struggling on a basic grammar lesson with his son and his wife Anne-Marie (Aure Atika). We get the point: they're 'ordinary' people driven by practical things, making ends meet at the end of the month, work, school, chores... sometimes it's on the soil of normality that a semblance of love grows best.
When Jean meets Mademoiselle Chambon, he realizes that love can be more than a semblance. One day, Anne-Marie breaks her back in the textile factory, he takes his son to school and sees the teacher for the first time; tall, blonde, shy with the contrite smile of someone trying to conceal her 'bourgeois' background. Brizé has a certain talent to let awkwardness transpire from evasive looks and silent stares. We never know exactly what emotions are travelling in their minds when their eyes meet but indifference isn't one of them. Later, Véronique asks Jean to come for a 'father job' introduction and the scene is interesting. Jean gets to the point in less than one minute but it's the enthused curiosity of children that gets him out of his shell.
This is basically the film in microcosm. Feeling valued is exhilarating and liberate your hidden self. Véronique is clearly not insensitive to that rock of a man whose eyes don't lie. She gently asks him to repair a window. At that point, viewers follow scenes that take in public places: school, classroom, and slowly our position switches from one to observers to voyeurs. But the transition is so smooth the line between privacy and intimacy is imperceptible. The windows stays open, and Véronique lets Jean work alone and wanders in her room like a little girl who doesn't want to disturb her parents.
She dozes off in her bed. When he's finished, Jean looks for her, opens the door of her room, her legs visible to the eye. The candidness makes the act subtly erotic, its seeming inoffensiveness makes her even more desirable. Would we have done the same? How far would curiosity push us to? Whatever, at that point, he had told his wife where he was and could leave, and no harm done.. But a gesture as simple as opening the door becomes a metaphor for his own heart unlocking. It's not that he loves her already, but he starts to like the idea that he could fall in love.
Then she wakes up and find him reading her partitions, he asks her to play some violin, she hesitates, he asks her to turn her back, and music becomes the bridge between their two souls... when they listen to one of her CDs, they exchange gentle touches, caress their arms, embrace and kiss, and it's one of the most tender moments of French cinema. They're acting wrong for moral reasons but morality fits in the long term, not in the heat of the instant. When the music stop, they stop too and leave.
"Mademoiselle Chambon" could easily be labeled as a romance and it is, but there's more to it, there's the whole hide-and-seek game and its little thrills, the emotions one in love goes through, passion, excitement, anticipation, deception, frustration... the exposition did such a good job in portraying Jean a good man that we unconsciously empathize with his internal dilemma. Kimberlain is touching and endearing as well. And as the story unfolds, there are hints about her past from one phone call from her mother, her message tells a lot about her background deprived of love and warmth. Something she could find in Jean with the bonus of sincerity.
Atika, in a thankless role, shines as well and proves that she has a wider range than the usual Parisian bobo girl, she's not oblivious to her husbands' activity out of of naivety, she just can't conceive it... she's a simple and practical woman and so infidelity in her mind is a luxury for people who want to make their lives complicated, or at the very least, she would understand if it was just sex.
There are many leitmotifs in the film: music as a way to communicate emotions, intimacy through door and windows opening and there's family, Chambon has virtually none, and Jean has his wife, his boy and his sick father (Jean-Marc Thibaut) he must take care of.. a scene where both visit an undertaker to choose a coffin seems out of place but no, we see that these people plan things, money-wise can't afford being neglectful... and Jean found in Véronique a liberation from these burdens ... and she found in him the resurrection of her low self-esteem: she's understood, desired, valued...
One minor criticism, I wasn't too sure about the 'pregnancy' subplot for it seemed to imply that the 'status quo' couldn't have convinced Jean to stay with his family. But then came that unforgettable climax in the train station (like in "Brief Encounter") where we're taken by that whirlwind of emotions going through Jean's mind during the final dilemma and its bittersweet and silent resolution.
Speaking of silence, I wonder if Brizé didn't embrace minimalism for it was the only canvas where a talent like Lindon's could be expressed to the fullest. In their own respective fields, both Lindon and Brizé are truly masters of the "unspoken".
As usual, Brizé trusts our patience... for all the slow and silent moment during the exposition, there's never a feeling of wasted time, or dullness. We see Jean working in masonry and carpentry... he built houses and the steady foundations of family life. The first scene shows him in a picnic struggling on a basic grammar lesson with his son and his wife Anne-Marie (Aure Atika). We get the point: they're 'ordinary' people driven by practical things, making ends meet at the end of the month, work, school, chores... sometimes it's on the soil of normality that a semblance of love grows best.
When Jean meets Mademoiselle Chambon, he realizes that love can be more than a semblance. One day, Anne-Marie breaks her back in the textile factory, he takes his son to school and sees the teacher for the first time; tall, blonde, shy with the contrite smile of someone trying to conceal her 'bourgeois' background. Brizé has a certain talent to let awkwardness transpire from evasive looks and silent stares. We never know exactly what emotions are travelling in their minds when their eyes meet but indifference isn't one of them. Later, Véronique asks Jean to come for a 'father job' introduction and the scene is interesting. Jean gets to the point in less than one minute but it's the enthused curiosity of children that gets him out of his shell.
This is basically the film in microcosm. Feeling valued is exhilarating and liberate your hidden self. Véronique is clearly not insensitive to that rock of a man whose eyes don't lie. She gently asks him to repair a window. At that point, viewers follow scenes that take in public places: school, classroom, and slowly our position switches from one to observers to voyeurs. But the transition is so smooth the line between privacy and intimacy is imperceptible. The windows stays open, and Véronique lets Jean work alone and wanders in her room like a little girl who doesn't want to disturb her parents.
She dozes off in her bed. When he's finished, Jean looks for her, opens the door of her room, her legs visible to the eye. The candidness makes the act subtly erotic, its seeming inoffensiveness makes her even more desirable. Would we have done the same? How far would curiosity push us to? Whatever, at that point, he had told his wife where he was and could leave, and no harm done.. But a gesture as simple as opening the door becomes a metaphor for his own heart unlocking. It's not that he loves her already, but he starts to like the idea that he could fall in love.
Then she wakes up and find him reading her partitions, he asks her to play some violin, she hesitates, he asks her to turn her back, and music becomes the bridge between their two souls... when they listen to one of her CDs, they exchange gentle touches, caress their arms, embrace and kiss, and it's one of the most tender moments of French cinema. They're acting wrong for moral reasons but morality fits in the long term, not in the heat of the instant. When the music stop, they stop too and leave.
"Mademoiselle Chambon" could easily be labeled as a romance and it is, but there's more to it, there's the whole hide-and-seek game and its little thrills, the emotions one in love goes through, passion, excitement, anticipation, deception, frustration... the exposition did such a good job in portraying Jean a good man that we unconsciously empathize with his internal dilemma. Kimberlain is touching and endearing as well. And as the story unfolds, there are hints about her past from one phone call from her mother, her message tells a lot about her background deprived of love and warmth. Something she could find in Jean with the bonus of sincerity.
Atika, in a thankless role, shines as well and proves that she has a wider range than the usual Parisian bobo girl, she's not oblivious to her husbands' activity out of of naivety, she just can't conceive it... she's a simple and practical woman and so infidelity in her mind is a luxury for people who want to make their lives complicated, or at the very least, she would understand if it was just sex.
There are many leitmotifs in the film: music as a way to communicate emotions, intimacy through door and windows opening and there's family, Chambon has virtually none, and Jean has his wife, his boy and his sick father (Jean-Marc Thibaut) he must take care of.. a scene where both visit an undertaker to choose a coffin seems out of place but no, we see that these people plan things, money-wise can't afford being neglectful... and Jean found in Véronique a liberation from these burdens ... and she found in him the resurrection of her low self-esteem: she's understood, desired, valued...
One minor criticism, I wasn't too sure about the 'pregnancy' subplot for it seemed to imply that the 'status quo' couldn't have convinced Jean to stay with his family. But then came that unforgettable climax in the train station (like in "Brief Encounter") where we're taken by that whirlwind of emotions going through Jean's mind during the final dilemma and its bittersweet and silent resolution.
Speaking of silence, I wonder if Brizé didn't embrace minimalism for it was the only canvas where a talent like Lindon's could be expressed to the fullest. In their own respective fields, both Lindon and Brizé are truly masters of the "unspoken".