Anne Fontaine’s ‘Gemma Bovery’

Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary, set in mid-19th century Normandy and a pillar of French literature, has been filmed on several occasions, for example by Claude Chabrol in 1991 and by Sophie Barthes in 2014, soon to be released in the UK. We are also going to have the opportunity to see Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery, a version at one remove from Flaubert’s and with a British twist. Posy Simmonds started her cartoon comic strips in the Guardian in the 1970s. They offered a satirical view of contemporary middle-class life, at least as lived by Guardian readers, and anticipated the sharper style of some of Grayson Perry’s pots and tapestries. In 1999 the Guardian ran Simmonds’ reworking of Flaubert as a graphic novel in which Emma Bovary becomes Gemma Bovery, half of an expatriate British couple living in present-day Normandy. It was later published in book form, with rather more text than would be found in a normal bande dessinée (see below, thanks to Amazon):

It is hardly a plot spoiler to say that Emma’s enthusiasm for adultery ends badly - if it hadn’t, the prosecution of Flaubert in 1857 for obscenity might not have failed. Gemma’s particular fate is retold in Simmond’s version through the eyes of the local baker (Boulanger with a small b …) and Flaubert admirer, Raymond Joubert. In the film he becomes Martin Joubert and is played by Fabrice Luchini, an actor whose expression conveys paragraphs. The intertwining of Joubert and Flaubert brings to mind Luchini in Philippe-le-Guay’s Alceste à bicyclette, where the literary presence was Molière and the setting the Ile de Ré. Gemma Arterton as Gemma Bovery is well-equipped to set male pulses racing and there are some comical scenes, for example when Martin teaches Gemma to knead dough. The attractive locations apart, Gemma Bovery is carried by Luchini and Arterton, the two leads overshadowing the rest of the cast, even Jason Flemyng as husband Charles/Charlie. Some of the other British characters seem to have been cast in the style of Woody Allen’s London films – all spoken English is now apparently a hybrid of Mockney and Estuarial.

I thought it was a better film than Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe in 2010, also with Arterton in the title role and based on a Simmonds graphic novel modernising Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novel Far from the Madding Crowd. Tamara Drewe was given 4* ratings by Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian and Philip French in the Observer - perhaps not surprisingly - and elsewhere. It will be interesting to see the UK critics’ reactions to Gemma Bovery next month.

Philippe Le Guay’s ‘Alceste à bicyclette’

(This film seems to have two English titles so I’m using the French original in the title of this post) 

Written by Le Guay and  Fabrice Luchini (In the House), who has one of the leading parts, this is an amusing “play within a film”, set on the Ile de Ré in SW France (subject of a post here last year), deserted but still photogenic in late winter/early spring. Gauthier Valence (Lambert Wilson) has achieved popular success playing the brain surgeon star of a French TV medical soap. Now he is hankering to make his mark in serious theatre (think Comédie-Française) and a route to this would be performing in Molière’s Le Misanthrope playing opposite his old friend Serge Tanneur (Luchini). But Tanneur had turned his back on the stage some time ago and now  lives as a recluse on the Ile. Valence’s tempting and novel proposal is that the two men alternate as Molière’s Alceste and Philinte, one critical and misanthropic, the other sociable and conforming. The parallels and contrasts with their own personalities are obvious and there is a distinct possibility that Tanneur is playing Valence along when he asks him to spend four days on the Ile reading their parts through. There are various encounters and complications which make the film less of a dry two-hander than it might at first seem.

Kate Muir in The Times gave Le Guay’s film 4* and commented:

Bicycling with Molière is a droll, intellectual delight, and probably one for Francophiles who have at least a vague knowledge of Molière’s play The Misanthrope.

and anyone who enjoys the Ile de Ré, of course.  I like to think I’m a Francophile, so I took her advice and tried to learn something about The Misanthrope before I saw the film, hence the few following notes which might help another ignorant soul.

Molière was the stage name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-1673, famous in his own time as an actor and playwright and subsequently regarded as one of the greatest French literary figures. Le Misanthrope ou l'Atrabilaire amoureux (The Misanthrope or The Cantankerous Lover) was first performed in 1666, during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King. As well as constructing Versailles, Louis patronised the arts, sponsoring and protecting writers such as Racine and Molière. The latter’s plays were unpopular with elements within the court and with the church, not least because of his satirical views of high society and pessimistic view of human nature.

There is a description of Le Misanthrope on Wikipedia, but for the purposes of enjoying the film, it probably is enough to be aware that: Alceste is the protagonist and "misanthrope" of the title. He is quick to criticize the flaws of everyone around him, including himself. Philinte is Alceste's foil, a man who recognizes the importance of occasionally veiling one's true opinions. Célimène is a young woman who is courted by Alceste although he disapproves of her behaviour. Spurned by her and having fallen out with others, Alceste decides to exile himself from society, and the play ends with Philinte and his fiancée setting off to persuade Alceste to return.

François Ozon’s ‘In the House’

François Ozon’s In the House (Dans La Maison) is, as the French say, une autre paire de manches in comparison with his previous film, the comedy Potiche. Like his 8 Women, In the House is based on a play, this one Spanish by Juan Mayorga, The Boy in the Last Row. The boy, Claude Garcia, sits in the back row of a literature class in a French lycée (secondary school) taught by Germain, and the film follows the evolution of their relationship. Germain, motivated by good intentions, at least to start with, and by the interest of his galleriste wife, Jeanne, encourages Claude to write about a fellow pupil, Rapha Artole, and his parents in a series of essays, each ending '(to be continued)'.
 

Early on you feel it’s all going to end badly, and while you wait to find out just how, Ozon explores the relationship between teacher and pupil and the artifices of literature and art (reflecting his apprenticeship with Eric Rohmer), while introducing ambiguities of his own. Of Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas who play Germain and Jeanne (above), Ozon has said:

I have wanted to work with Kristen Scott Thomas for a long time and I just felt that chemistry would work between her and Fabrice because they have the same theatrical background. They also have great comic timing and I think that it works incredibly well. I had in mind the couple of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Manhattan - an intellectual couple who are always speaking about intellectual things - and I thought that it would really work between those two actors.

and it does. Ernst Umhauer is equally convincing as the precocious but naive Claude. However, Emmanuelle Seigner has less opportunity to impress in the somewhat characterless role of Mme Artole.

The subtitles are in American English so instead of second year students we get sophomores. But Claude’s fascination with the Artoles as une famille normale is repeatedly mistranslated by referring to them as a perfect family rather than a typical or average one. They might be perfect in American eyes – Rapha and his father’s obsession with basketball, their sharing the same forename, the Artoles’ house, the one Claude is so keen to get inside – all seem more North American than French. The house’s only odd feature is the set of Paul Klee watercolours whose symbolism is revealed to Mme Artole by Claude and whose presence puzzles Jeanne when she reads about them in one of the essays. The French are just as assiduous in demarcating their properties as the British, so the vagueness of the boundaries between chez Artole and the neighbouring park with the bench from which Claude began his observations seems a little unconvincing on film. I can imagine it having worked better on the stage.

Dedicated cinéastes will have views as to whether In the House contains homages to Hitchcock and Allen as well as Rohmer, but apparently it was the art department that prompted the Match Point poster for the cinema queue! A thought-provoking and well-acted film, definitely worth seeing.