10/15/2002 Entry:
"CIFF - Day 9"

So Sunday's lineup consisted of the remaining two films of Lucas Belvaux' Trilogy - An Amazing Couple and After Life. I think The Trilogy taken as a whole will end up being my favorite thing in the fest. Certainly thus far, its the best thing I've seen, and there's not much left. Belvaux actually presented these films and did Q&A during their first presentations last week, and I really wish I could have caught up with them at that time. From all accounts, it was a really interesting discussion.

In a drastic shift of style from On The Run, An Amazing Couple is a farce of epic proportions. The layers of misunderstanding reach Fawlty Towers levels. The husband and wife here were only briefly referred to in On The Run, but the events of this film are totally intertwined with the events in that film through the police officer Pascal, who figures prominently in all three films. I felt this film was the least of the series, it didn't get under my skin the way On The Run and After Life did (although most people seem to think After Life is the least of the three.) Certainly it was entertaining and amusing, the comedy handled deftly by Belvaux. Mostly the fascincation is watching new events unfold as they stemmed from On The Run, and wondering how the various loose ends remaining are going to be handled in After Life.

After Life is concerned with the story of Pascal the police officer, and his wife Agnes who is a morphine addict. Watching this you see how Pascal is really the guiding force in all three of the films, working behind the scenes in ways the other characters can't begin to understand. Although this film reprises large sections of both On The Run and An Amazing Couple, the new perspective added by the background information on Pascal and his doings adds a whole new dimension to the proceedings. There are also some subtle things different in this story, and while some have chalked this up to error on the part of Belvaux, I felt like Belvaux was changing things subtly based on the perceptions of the person we were following. For instance, in the birthday party scene where Pascal and Cecile first interact. In After Life, Cecile gives Pascal a big smile and a flirty look when he arrives, whereas in An Amazing Couple this does not occur. This to me, is great because Pascal is after Cecile, so he perceives her the way he wants to. Whereas Cecile, whose viewpoint we are following in An Amazing Couple, is not interested in Pascal, so this exchange to her does not occur. I'm sure that upon subsequent viewings more and more of these little touches and connections would become apparent. I have heard that Belvaux actually filmed all three films simultaneously, which makes sense so he wouldn't have to revisit sets and such, so I suppose it is possible that you could chalk these little things up to different line readings or whatever. I prefer to think differently though.

I was also impressed with how passionately Belvaux handled Agnes' addiction. The centerpiece of this film is a scene where she overdoses, and he pulls in on her so tight its like there is nothing else in the world but the rug she is lying on (and of course to her there probably isn't.) The whole scene is silent, a flash to a white light, then Bruno brings her around. In terms of craft and performance the whole seqeuence is perfect. The ending was almost a little too much, but Belvaux took the right road with it. I love how through the three films you have a different opinion of Pascal, and The Trilogy is really his story as much as anything else. In On The Run, he seems like a typical working cop on the trail of a criminal. In An Amazing Couple, he just seems like a scummy/horny cop, trying to turn a situation to his advantage. Its only in After Life that his the fullness of his character comes out, and you realize that the situation is more complex than either of those two simple explanations could possibly describe.

It is a real shame that The Trilogy will probably never get distributed in any even somewhat wide way. The format obviously makes it difficult to screen except at specialty venues, although one would hope that the quality of the work would bring it to the attention of those programmers so that at least people in the larger cities will get a crack at it. Hopefully it will get a DVD release too, even if only region 2 or whatever.