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BETTY
FISHER AND OTHER STORIES
6/10
Betty
Fisher et Autres Histoires : France 2001 : Claude Miller :
102 mins
ONE-LINE
REVIEW: Half psychological drama, half melodramatic thriller, this quirkily
jagged but well-acted Gallic jeu d’esprit is never less than intriguing.
Betty
Fisher is a startling oddball mixture of dark drama and semi-comic
melodrama that will strike many viewers as somehow ‘typically French.’
This may seem strange, considering it’s based on a novel (‘Tree of Hands’)
by the English writer Ruth Rendell. Then again, while British screen-adaptations
of Rendell’s books have been relatively unadventurous TV mini-series,
it can’t be a coincidence that at least three prominent continental directors
have recently turned her works into well-received features - Miller now
joining Claude Chabrol (La Ceremonie, based on ‘A Judgement In
Stone’) and Pedro Almodovar (Live
Flesh).
There’s
a clear parallel Patricia Highsmith, the US-born writer to whom Rendell
is most often compared, both of them responsible for crafting narratives
of moral and psychological intricacy which have struck a particular chord
with European readers and film-makers. For much of its running-time, Betty
Fisher is a typical example of the Rendall/Highsmith mode: an engrossingly
complex, confident and sober exploration of serious themes: grief, guilt,
maternity, relationships and conscience. The sinister tone is set in a
striking prologue set on a train (and making imaginative use of digital-video)
in which a sleeping mother is woken by her young daughter, whom she suddenly
attacks with a pair of scissors.
Twenty-five
years later, the daughter, Betty Fisher (Sandrine Kilberlain) is a successful
writer, recently has returned from New York to her native Paris, with
her pre-schooler son Joseph (Arthur Setbon). Betty’s mother Margot (Nicole
Garcia) arrives in the city for unspecified hospital tests, and stays
with her daughter and grandson in their comfortable house in Vaucresson,
an up-market suburb. It’s clear that Margot is still somewhat mentally
volatile, and her relationship with Betty remains strained. On the first
night of Margot’s visit, Joseph accidentally falls from an upstairs window
and is taken to hospital, where he later dies.
The
unpredictable Margot reacts by kidnapping another child – Jose (Alexias
Chatrian) – from an inner-city housing estate, telling the grief-numbed,
suicidal Betty that he’s the godson of a holidaying friend. While Jose’s
waitress mother Carole (Mathilde Seigner) appeals (somewhat half-heartedly)
in the media for Jose’s return, the police suspect her on-off boyfriend
Francois (Luck Mervil) of being behind the child’s disappearance. Miller
nimbly juggles these – and several other – subplots that spiral out from
the main narrative, dividing up into chapters named after each of the
characters: ‘Joseph’s Story’, ‘Carole’s Story’, etc.
While
ostensibly taking place in a recognisable, if relatively nondescript Paris
– two of the key locations are beer bars located inside tacky shopping-malls
– the narrative is a long way from gritty, documentary-style realism.
The characters are like hapless pawns in some wider game, their destinies
and fates hinging on increasingly absurd coincidences and contrivances.
These make for an entertaining, unpredictable movie (and it would be unfair
to reveal how the various stories pan out) but there comes a point where
melodrama overwhelms drama, and in Betty Fisher this arrives in
a climactic show-down in one of those shopping-mall beer bars.
This
scene – and the very last one, set in an airport – emphasise the incompatibility
of the film’s split-personality. On the one hand, it’s a harrowing tale
of mental breakdown in the face of shattering family tragedy. On the other,
it’s a freewheelingly implausible comic-tinged thriller which turns the
very real emotions of its characters into a kind of ludicrous farce –
and the strength of the performances only serves to underline the problem
(Seigner, in a stunning change of pace from her subdued turn in Harry
He’s Here To Help, makes the biggest impact – though Carole is
the showiest role.)
The
results are absorbing but never fully satisfying – especially in comparison
with Michael Haneke’s much more demanding and consistent Code
Unknown, another Paris-based drama divided into ‘chapters’ as
it spirals out into multiple subplots. The ‘story’ inter-titles in Betty
Fisher don’t really add anything here – especially since ‘Betty’s
Story’ confusingly appears twice. They’re just the kind of stylistic affectation
which the austere Haneke would instinctively avoid – he’d also never dream
of using the gauzy effect deployed by cinematographer Christophe Pollock
whenever veteran actress (and director) Garcia appears in in close-up,
and he’d run a mile from Miller’s clumsy handling of the end credits –
though the opening credits are exemplary. As is the editing by Veronique
Langue, who delivers a crisp master-class that’s rather better than this
crazy script deserves, and which helps Betty Fisher to be sufficiently
unusual and intriguing enough to get away with its various glaring lapses.
26th
July 2002
(seen 24th, Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle)
by Neil
Young
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