Juliette Binoche and the “Moral Code”, Part One

I probably never got to decide on my own if I liked French films or not. When I was fourteen I went with my mother to see Peppermint Soda, which was directed by the amazing Diane Kurys. The movie is about a 13-year-old girl in Paris who is trying to come of age under the shadow of her parents’ divorce, her older sister’s political rants (she’s against the bomb and what the French are doing in Algeria), and her own confused thoughts. I loved the movie. By the time I was 14, I’d seen countless movies, TV shows, books for girls, and issues of Seventeen Magazine, all of which explained everything that a teenage girl should, would, could feel. Peppermint Soda assumed I was capable of entertainment that didn’t explain everything, and as I followed the heroine’s efforts to understand and accept, a French-film lover was born. I never did love Jules and Jim as much my father felt I should, and I can’t say that every bit of Breathless left me enthralled, and I really hated Vagabond. But as a rule, the films made in France that come to the States tend to share a belief in the audience’s abilities to connect the dots. No matter your age, it’s hard not to be seduced by that.

Which is why I dragged my husband to go see L’heure d’été (Summer Hours). It has Juliette Binoche in it and it’s hard to complain about anything if you have a chance to look at her. The movie, about how three siblings handle the dispersal of their mother’s estate after her death, is not great. It has amazing performances and a lovely depiction of the French countryside. It never once thought it needed to explain to the viewers, it simply revealed what it was like to be each of the siblings. The siblings squabbled and did their best. Paintings by Corot as well as a summer house are sold. It is up for debate if the grandchildren will recall much of the time they spent at their grandmother’s.

I liked that we never saw either the mother’s death or the funeral. I like how so much happened off screen. I liked how a sub-plot about a granddaughter told us miles about the eldest brother and his marriage. I liked how we found out about the failed marriage of Binoche’s character via a joke. I liked how her boyfriend showed up and left without a lot of set-up or explanation.

In spite of the acting, the film’s many good parts didn’t add up. I think it was supposed to be about how objects hold memory and how stories fade in importance when there is no one left who cares to listen. It was no I’ve Loved You So Long (see below), but it was still nice to spend time with a movie that wanted to be more than its parts. This has gotten too long, and I’ve spent an insane amount of time trying not to sound like I love the French (I don’t—the one time I was in Paris, I cried every day because they were so mean to me). It’s simply that I formed a habit back when I was fourteen and I’ve never yet shucked it. I’ll write next week about the moral code, which has to do with YA novels, Katie Roiphe, and what a writer owes her reader.