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MISTER
V.
7/10
France 2003
: Emilie DELEUZE : 90 mins
Mister V.
had its UK premiere in London on October 31st, 2003 –
the very same day that, across town at Warner Brothers West End, a rather
more elaborate film named after its four-legged equine subject galloped
into town. Even without this (perhaps not-coincidental) quirk of scheduling,
it’s very tempting to describe Mister V. as the “anti-Seabiscuit”
- although Mister V.* is a fictional, non-thoroughbred European showjumper
and Seabiscuit was a real, thoroughbred American flat-racer.
Deleuze’s
arthouse ‘horse opera’ is much closer to the film and play of
Peter Shaffer’s disturbing Equus than it is to Gary Ross’s
Oscar-bait uber-inspirational tale of odds-upsetting underdogs. Her unsentimenalised
tone is appropriate, given that her eponymous anti-hero is such a truculent
brute, the unwitting subject of an insurance scam cooked by by unscrupulous
Luigi (Patrick Catalifo) and Belgian breeder Moigne (Jean-Louis Richard).
Having ‘bid up’ his price between them an auction, the pair
intend that a fatal “accident” should befall the pseudo-valuable
horse in Luigi’s stables.
When Mister
V. displays startling potential as a jumper, however (in a silent, transcendent
moment he unexpectedly comes sailing over a high breeze-block wall) Luigi
starts to have second thoughts. He’s also swayed by the wise counsel
of his his brother Lucas (Mathieu Demy, son of legendary Lola auteur
Jacques), a scientist specialising in equine physiology, who finds Mister
V. a fascinating case study in animal power. But events are to take an
unexpectedly tragic turn…
It’s at
this point that Mister V. the movie reveals its true character.
After the noirish, crime-drama opening act, the film takes a left-turn
to cover much more original turf. Deleuze explores of the relationship
between man and horse – specifically a man and a horse,
but things don’t develop as we expect – thankfully, this isn’t
some Gallic variation on The Horse Whisperer. Mister V. calms down
a little, but not much (in UK horse-racing terms, he’d still get
a Timeform double squiggle). A sufficient bond is established for the
stallion to join amateur tap-dancer Lucas in what amounts to a six-legged
dance routine – that this scene, which sounds laughably ludicrous
on paper, works as such a deliciously tense and believable sequence on
celluloid is a testament to the skills of Deleuze, her cinematographer
Jean-Philippe Bouyer and, especially, her editor Mathilde Muyard.
Muyard effectively
assembles ‘Mister V.’ in the editing-room, cutting together
footage of seven different horses into an utterly convincing ‘performance’
– Seabiscuit, by contrast, was played by eleven horses, not all of
them the same colour. The snorting, stomping, nostril-flaring Mister V.
is effectively the villain of the piece – his appearances generate
the scary atmosphere associated with the best horror-movie killers, although
he’s by no means a one-dimensional presence. His dangerous charisma
does much to counterbalance the film’s occasionally over-sedate pace
and the bumpier plot convolutions, such as Lucas’s prickly dealings
with his brother’s wife Cecile (Aure Atika) and stable-hand Jean-Francois
(Gerald Thomassin). Another definite plus is the Rudolphe Burger’s
guitar score, which nimbly captures the atmosphere of this corner of tranquil,
slightly old-fashioned France.
20th
November, 2003
(seen 31st October : National Film Theatre, London – London
Film Festival)
* The horse’s
name ends with a full stop, indicating the prononciation “Mister
Vee” (in French, “Meestair Vey”). Without the full stop,
the name would mean ‘Mister the Fifth’ and simply be pronounced
“Mister.”
click
here for a full list of films covered at the 2003 London Film Festival
by Nicholas
Arcane
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