A film review: "Le milieu du monde" [Switzerland, France 1974]

With his romantic drama "Le milieu du monde" [Eng. Title: The Middle of the World], Alain Tanner signals a marked shift in the style and content of his film-making, one that'll also usher-in the most productive and creative phase of his career, featuring cinematic gems such as Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, Light Years Away, In the White City, and A Flame in My Heart, among many others.









Set in an idyllic but simple Swiss village, Tanner's film examines the intense but short-lived life of a romantic love affair - between married businessman Paul (Philippe Léotard) and Adriana (Olimpia Carlisi) - a recently arrived Venetian widow who works as a waitress at the local railway café. The film is presented like a video diary with a straightforward narrative, and uses the Swiss landscape as its backdrop.

Paul has everything going for him - he's successful, charming, and has just been chosen as an electoral candidate to represent a conservative party. He falls for Adriana from the moment he sets eyes on her, and wastes little time in asking her out on a date that she too will accept. After a few dates, he will profess his love for her, and claim that he is now at the centre of the world.

Adriana appreciates his affections, but is nevertheless also happy on her own - about herself, her job, and also the modest room that she lives in, while Paul tries to persuade her into quitting her 'crummy' job, and move in with him into a more luxurious apartment. Paul brazenly embarks upon the affair despite remaining in public gaze during his electioneering - it's as if he wants his affair to be known to everyone.

The party bosses aren't too happy when they find out about his affair, and even his close childhood friends take a wager on him loosing in elections. Paul indeed looses - perhaps he wanted it this way all along, so that he could regain his privacy and divorce his wife without the press kicking too much of fuss. He asks Adriana to accompany him in his globe-trotting plans, assuming that it is something she too would enjoy - but she turns down his offer.

There in lies Paul's problem - the business-like manner in which he approaches relationships, renders him incapable of truly getting to know the woman that he thinks he's in love with. He readily admits seeing himself at the centre of the world (hence the film's title) around whom others interact, and is consequently at odds with Adriana in one crucial respect - while Paul talks a lot and says very little, Adriana is verbal economy personified, but what little she does say is as insightful as it is telling. Paul might have nonchalantly dismissed and changed the topic after hearing Adriana say, "If a man sees a woman naked, he thinks he knows her already - and starts defining her so and so. That's why I want this room to be dark", but her words succinctly points out why their relationship will also fail. Adriana may seem just as unfathomable to the viewer as the director, but that doesn't stop us from being drawn to her enigmatic character.

.



The fascinating character study is set against the desolate beauty and magnificence of the Swiss landscape, frequently juxtaposed with the mood and state of the couple's relationship. Some of cinematographer and Tanner-regular Renato Berta's stunning compositions - shot in aesthetically pleasing full-frame, impart an abstract, 'architectural' quality to scenes that would've easily won the approval of an Antonioni or Angelopoulos. Ms. Carlisi was nominated for BAFTA for her magnetic performance in the film, but Berta too ought to have been in the list for his evocative cinematography. Alain Tanner, of course, is in fine form in this masterfully put-together drama. I, for one, could sit and watch gems like these all day long - Highly Recommended Viewing..!

 

Amazon 2-Disc DVD Link [PAL]
As with most Tanner films, this DVD too is difficult to get hold of, and it is about time that this changes. For the moment, I add a title to my wishlist and wait for an alert mail when they become available. The DVD is otherwise immaculately restored with rich colours, whilst retaining their grain texture. The other disc contains another of Tanner's classics - Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000.

 

The Nudity: Olimpia Carlisi
The classy Italian actress appears nude or partially nude in a handful of scenes that are just as beautiful as they're tasteful, and as a bonus, her Italian-accented French is charming even for a foreigner like me. Most of the nude scenes happen when her character is shown in the comfort of her own room, whether alone or with her lover. There's just one scene when she's nude while not in her preferred surroundings - in a room at a tourists' hotel - and she refuses to sleep in the bed or have sex with Paul there.



.

A review: "Une flamme dans mon coeur" [1987 Switzerland, France]

Alain Tanner makes a concerted attempt at re-interpreting feminist ideals with his intense and controversial drama "Une flamme dans mon coeur" [Eng. Title: A Flame in My Heart]. However, over the film's course, he drops the topic and reverts to what he does best - coaxing his protagonist on a philosophical walkabout.

 


Mercedes (Myriam Mézières) is a gifted theatre actress who can embody the character she's playing on stage, intensely and unselfconsciously - characteristics that have also permeated into her personal life and relationships, some of which are destructive even. Like her obsessive and domineering boyfriend Johnny (Azize Kabouche) - his all-or-nothing approach is the kind of stress that women would rather do without, but invariably end up courting. Mercedes had tried to end their relationship several times but he still manages to get into her bed every night, thanks to his overbearing ways that she also finds irresistible.

 


After finally shaking him off by taking refuge in a hotel room, Mercedes goes into town intent on finding herself a new boyfriend, and fancying a guy travelling in a train, she follows him. Pierre (Benoît Régent), a journalist, who is too shy to take the initiative even after receiving the right signals, will become Mercedes' chosen prey. He is the opposite of Johnny in many respects - educated, employed, courteous, logical, and who like in his chosen profession, prefers to look at things from the outside - without getting involved in proceedings. Unlike Mercedes though, who likes to immerse herself in everything that she does - as she puts it, "be in the centre where it burns".

 


After a brief romance, Mercedes moves into Pierre's apartment. But she will soon be laid out bare for all to see - figuratively as well as literally, when Pierre had to go away on a foreign assignment for two weeks. Her sense of loneliness will reveal an inability to function normally without someone wanting her. Reluctantly turning up for work, she'll be fired for inexplicably forgetting her lines during rehearsal. Slumped to a couch, she will lie there for several days, naked and unkempt, subsisting on cornflakes and watching TV even after broadcast had ended. Mercedes had always enjoyed having orgasms during sex - and Pierre, the subservient partner in their relationship, had once remarked that he'd never come across a woman who pursued pleasure with as much passion as she did. But in truth, Mercedes misses being owned, used, and abused, and her orgasm through masturbation will only reveal her shame, and hidden masochism.

 


Upon his return, Pierre is dismayed to find a naked and untidy Mercedes in a flat littered with empty cereal boxes. He'd been trying to call her all these days, and notices that the telephone wire had been snipped as well. Without a job to go to, he wonders what she's going to do. But Mercedes had already found a new job that Pierre will only be appalled to discover later, when he spots her performing suggestively with her big stuffed chimpanzee toy at a fairground booth, totally naked. When he confronts her afterwards, her repost will reveal a woman with political acumen despite her apparent lack of interest in political articles that Pierre writes for newspapers. She tells him that what she's doing now is the same as what she was doing while performing Racine's 'Berenice' on stage - essentially selling dreams, and she feels that the lower classes are entitled to their dreams too.

 


The film's focus shifts when Mercedes joins Pierre on his next assignment - Tanner is no longer interested in the couple's politics, and the audience themselves had noticed the pair's mismatch. By taking her out of her natural surroundings and turning her into a foreigner, Mercedes is allowed to completely disengage from herself and feel the alienation both from within and outside - a territory that Tanner is only too familiar exploring. He might not have given himself enough screen time on this occasion for allegory and philosophical musing - the script was after all co-written by Myriam Mézières herself, but he revels in his protagonist's total isolation all the same.

 


This might not be Tanner's finest work, but it has its virtues. Not least is Ms. Mézières' intense and lay-it-all-bare performance - she disintegrates right in front of the camera as we watch her character loose inhibition and identity. She is frequently naked and in at least one scene, the sex is real, even if not pornographic - when she masturbates in front of television. Shot in 16 mm, and captured in grainy black and white by Acácio de Almeida who also worked with Tanner on 'In the White City', the cinematography imbues the film with an abstract dream-like quality by utilising strong contrast - some frames are so exquisite that prints from them could easily find a place in a gallery.

.

The Striptease: This is the famous (or infamous) striptease scene where Ms. Mézières dances with a stuffed chimpanzee. Apart from showcasing her talents in burlesque, the scene is used to make a political statement, unlike imitations of this scene in films that came after. A typical example is the opening scene in Aurelio Grimaldi's "La donna lupo", which not only copied the music, but mimics the black and white style too, with the main difference being the prop that the dancer plays with - a stuffed panda in place of the stuffed chimp. The scene is recreated to portray a teenager's wet dream. Loredana Cannata certainly is a beautiful and talented actress, but she certainly hasn't the attitude of a Myriam Mézières, and nor is the film anywhere as accomplished as Tanner's, and as for the cinematography, let's not even go there!

.

Compare the two:
'Une flamme dans mon coeur' and 'La donna lupo'





 

The DVD:
My DVD is not digitally remastered, but still looks great, even if it only comes with German subtitles. The unusual and rare film is certainly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon.fr DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Myriam Mézières, Azize Kabouche, and Benoît Régent
The film has adult themes and features frequent scenes with nudity, mostly of Myriam Mézières, including one that is also fairly explicit.



.

Odile Schmitt in "Les Années Lumière" [1981 Switzerland, France]

It can be difficult to pigeon-hole Alain Tanner - he is one of the few pan-European directors who likes to defy cultural, linguistic, and geographical boundaries when it comes to cinema, and here's another example - his contemplative drama "Les Années Lumière" [Eng. Title: Light Years Away] may have been a Swiss-French production, but the English language film was shot entirely in Ireland, with a predominantly British cast, by adapting aspects from a well-known Greek myth (Daedalus and Icarus).

Storyline:
Young Jonas (Mick Ford), a drifter at heart who likes to be free 'like a bird', first meets Yoshka Poliakeff (Trevor Howard) while working in a pub. But when he's fired for not turning up for work on time, Jonas goes in search of Yoshka's garage up in the country. But Yoshka wouldn't take him under his wings that easily. Forced to sleep outside and toil to earn his meals, Jonas will find the going tough, and is forced to battle with his own self to understand a purpose in life. The eccentric Yoshka will eventually become his perfect tutor and master, to help him see beyond the obvious - Yoshka after all had been preparing all these years to fly away "beyond galaxies, light years away", by meticulously observing and bonding with birds of prey. He had constructed the perfect wings for his task, and this Daedalus is going to do it all alone, for himself - it is his own personal journey. And Jonas too will learn a thing or two about life from the guru before his departure...

Set in a desolate landscape, the austere and allegorical film bears witness to the coming-of-age of a clueless young drifter. It is simple in its structure and doesn't try to say anything more than it needs to. Alain Tanner followed this up with an equally contemplative but more accomplished Dans la Ville Blanche, but despite its rough edges and at times incoherent edits, "Light Years Away" stands out on its own as an imaginative interpretation of an interesting tale. The haunting dogma-style cinematography would have pleased Lars von Trier, and far from being dreary, the film is brought alive by the humour and warmth of the characters. Oscar-nominated Trevor Howard is in his element as the enigmatic Yoshka - witty and engaging - it is through him that we develop an interest in Jonas' personal journey. This may be an obscure little gem, but precious nevertheless, and Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link [PAL]

 

The Nudity: Mick Ford and Odile Schmitt
The nude scenes happen much later in the film, when Jonas (Mick Ford) visits the city to complete some necessary paperwork for his will. He meets an exotic dancer at a club (Odile Schmitt) where they strike up a relationship. Well - of sorts...



.

Teresa Madruga in "Dans la Ville Blanche" [1983 France, Portugal]

Some people talk of European cinema as if it is some kind of a monolith, or a method of film-making in itself. While it certainly isn't, there is something in the cinema made here that is unique to the region, one that will find itself out of place anywhere else - its essence. Good film makers the world over who have sought inspiration from European classics know where to draw the line - one beyond which they'll end up looking pretentious or even irrelevant. Even among Europe's finest film makers, you will find they tend to relate mostly to their own native audience. But if I have to pick one film maker who can transcend regions and find himself at home anywhere in Europe when it comes to cinema, it will have to be the Swiss-born Alain Tanner.

Like in his 1983 classic, "Dans la Ville Blanche" [Eng. Title: In the White City] - I was actually in a dilemma where to even file it in the blog - here we have a Swiss director making a French film about a German (Swiss) sailor living in Portugal. I have seen only a handful of Tanner's films to date - they're not particularly easy to get hold of, but among those this one remains my favourite, pipping his earlier and more widely known gem, "Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000 ".

Storyline:
Paul, a German-Swiss sailor deserts ship upon reaching Lisbon - just like that. He walks around the city filming with his 8mm camera and sends the footage to his wife back home. In all his communications with his wife, he is honest, sometimes painfully so. Especially after he meets and falls in love with local waitress Rosa at the hotel where he's staying. Paul doesn't want to work, resolve whatever problems he has with his wife - it is obvious they still care about each other, or even settle down with the cute Rosa who only wants to see some kind of commitment from him. Paul has decided to take a vacation from everyday life itself, without quite becoming a hermit.

The storyline however tells us nothing of what's in store for us. This is an intimate journey of a man in a state of crisis. We don't know what he is looking for - by all probability he himself doesn't. And neither is he particularly worried about it as he takes every minute as it comes. It is this vacuous 'walkabout' in an alien city with its fading charm, much like himself, that keeps us transfixed to the screen. It is a film about alienation as much as it is about a man's hidden desire to do something 'worthwhile'. Way ahead of its time - it looks at a Europe without frontiers, and contemplates a human condition that is thoroughly modern and relevant today. In the process, we're left these haunting images of a Lisbon probably never seen before nor will ever be - the grainy 8mm stock used in these scenes give a nostalgic feel and abstract quality that so befits the film's theme. Add to that we have a breathtaking jazz soundtrack by Jean-Luc Barbier, used sparingly but to magnificent effect. One could relate to Paul the protagonist, played by a very different looking Bruno Ganz (Der Himmel über Berlin - Wings of Desire). As also with the plain but beautiful waitress Rosa, played by leading Portuguese actress Teresa Madruga. I also loved the way Tanner forces you to get to grips with his pace to show us his world, his vision. If action-packed films are your thing, this one isn't your cup of tea, but for those with curiosity and patience, this is as rewarding as films get. Needless to say, Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon.com DVD Link
English Subtitles




Compilation: Teresa Madruga
This film is a whole lot more than these brief nude scenes. The main purpose of the post is to write something about one of the most memorable films I've ever seen and also kick start Alain Tanner's filmography. This was taken from my letterboxed DVD - I haven't checked the more recent Alain Tanner collection box-set, but as far as I'm aware this film hasn't been digitally remastered. It is nevertheless a decent transfer as it stands.



Scene Guide:

• Rosa the waitress invites Paul to her apartment to spend some time together after work. Rosa is played by a young and beautiful Teresa Madruga, and Paul by Swiss actor of repute Bruno Ganz.
• Continued...
• This time Rosa sneaks into his hotel room during work.
• Paul had only recently been mugged and robbed of all his cash. Penniless, hungry, all he could think of is making a 'romantic' film with Rosa.
• No nudity but relevant scene as Rosa realises she's in love with a person who's still a stranger to her in many respects.
• Highlight of the compilation - some of the 8mm footage shot by Paul - magical!

.