At the time of its publication in 1992, easy passion, by Annie Ernaux, caused a stir. At the time, for an intellectual with a feminist aura to describe her torrid affair with a man who dictated the rules of the game (“I don’t want to explain my passion — that would amount to considering it a mistake or a mess you have to justify yourself — but simply expose it.”), this seemed inadmissible. In addition, displaying certain popular tastes by referring to porn movies on Canal+ or to songs by Sylvie Vartan, it was perplexing…
However, hearing him hum “C’est fatal, animal”, Ernaux seemed to recognize himself, desperately waiting for his lover of Slavic origin, nicknamed A., to show up, especially in the afternoon, out of sight, whose that of his wife. A wait that will give her the impression of dissolving in a daily life that no longer has any meaning: only these appointments count for which the literature teacher takes pleasure in buying beautiful blouses or dresses. so that he could see her, each time, in a new light, just a few seconds before throwing everything on the ground.
After Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic (The other), and more recently Audrey Diwan (The event), Danielle Arbid (Afraid of nothing, A lost man) was in turn attracted by Ernaux’s delicate, minimalist and shameless writing. Transposing the story to the present time, she keeps the essence of this unfiltered confession intact, beautifully illustrating what was suggested in the book, including her heroine’s travels, those where she tries to forget everything, like in Florence, also imagining other escapades to flesh out the profile of this not very romantic lover. Including a quick trip to Moscow where this injured woman tries to get closer to her loved one even without seeing him. Because Hélène (Laetitia Dosch, close to the physical profile of Ernaux, capturing her elegance and a veil of sadness) has, as they say, Alexandre (the dancer Sergei Polounine as an attractive bad boy) in the skin.
Which means that she neglects her son, young but never fooled by his mother’s wanderings, is bored at friends’ dinners, and remains clinging to her telephone like others to a leash.
Danielle Arbid captures the physical antics of this couple, but also their psychological battles
Desperate desire
Closer to this forbidden couple who leave nothing to the spectator’s imagination, Danielle Arbid captures their physical antics, but also their psychological battles.
This liaison constitutes a dangerous game, starting when Alexandre decides to do so, interrupting itself in the same way, giving Hélène the impression of living in weightlessness, on the fringes of everything, including what she considered important. not so long ago. A heroine both fragile and stubborn, her unreasonable love takes up all the space, the filmmaker dwelling on a host of daily gestures, from chain-toasted cigarettes to her frenzy for beautiful clothes, which betray her worried, even desperate desire.
How far will she go to satisfy this taciturn, self-centered Russian embassy employee who loves beautiful cars and Vladimir Putin? Everything separates them, except this all-consuming attraction, and in her suburban house that looks like a glass pavilion, Hélène scans the horizon so as not to miss anything of the moment it appears, also watching her son make his way to school, but rarely with the same feverishness.
Both a meticulous x-ray of an illusory love whose outcome everyone knows and a chronicle of a year in the life of a woman gradually losing her footing in the midst of her comfortable world, easy passion wipes the slate clean of romanticism. The ballet orchestrated by Danielle Arbid is that of two bodies that find their fullness when everything else is kept apart, during torrid moments, thus erasing their cultural and social differences. But it’s also the story of an implacable reality that suddenly catches up with them…