Rampant criminality, then and now


I like Julia Roy in a quasi-Hussar officer uniform! She
plays a young woman who listens to Casanova's sad-sack
story and only appears briefly. You do wonder if director
Benoit Jacquot is thinking of his relationship with his
new muse Roy when writing/directing the story of an
over-the-hill Casanova and his unrequited love for a
much younger woman. I don't want to insinuate anything
and I pay no attention to directors' and actors' private
lives. It is an intriguing thought though.

The film is fascinating in many other ways. It is at
least the third time Jacquot has set a film in the late
18th century. His _Sade_, also about an aging rogue, is
probably his worst film; it is one of his few efforts
without his writing contribution, and in the DVD interview
he can see his ambivalence. Is this film a do-over? At
least Jacquot's sympathy always lies with the outsider;
he is the anti-Olivier Assayas (and the antidote) in that
sense. Casanova's gambling and whoring are legend, and
some of his exploits listed in wikipedia qualify as
child molestation. What is fascinating is how Jacquot
normalizes his behavior among the English high society
and continental visitors: basically everyone (male or
female) is a john, a prostitute, a hustler about to be
thrown in prison for running up debt, or a combination
of those. Everything is for show. The beautiful
clothes, immaculate mansions, baroque period music,
and stately cinematic composition barely hide the
rampant criminality and the rot. The film even
visually compares these hangers-on to a Princess's
pet dogs.

Casanova is said to be a great conversationalist, but
instead of (say) the motor-mouthed Fabrice Luchini
(who is so good in Jacquot's own _Keep It Quiet_), the
director picks the taciturn Vincent Lindon. Then again,
by 41 Casanova probably looked exactly like Lindon.
Stacy Martin's character is likely a composite of
historical figures; some day the actress will have to
convince us she can play more than just the siren role.
The film-making is elegant, as straight-forward as
anything Jacquot has done in years, but it is effective.

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The less said about _Mama Weed_ the better. Set in the
modern day Paris, everyone is either a drug-dealer,
a money launderer, or some sort of gun-toting murderer
-in-waiting. But instead of indictment, the film
celebrates the blatant law-breaking. I guess the
filmmakers feel that the female protagonist (played
by the famous Isabelle Huppert, at times passing
herself off as Arabic no less) and the Chinese
(or "people of color," what a racist and insulting
term) gang, have get-out-of-jail cards thanks to
American style identity politics. Their criminal
activities are played for laughs, even though
drug trafficking leads to tarnished lives all along
the chain regardless of what race or gender the
final dealer is. This could be _Greta II_ for
Huppert, and she has really played the same kind
of mildly off-kilter roles for way too long.
Incidentally, among her roles that I remember
best now, at least three are in Jacquot's films
(_The School of Flesh_, _Keep it Quiet_, _Villa
Amalia_). She is also wonderful in Hartley's
_Amateur_ and _Lacemaker_ but those seem so
long ago now. One reviewer (New Yorker?) writes
that Jacquot would benefit from working with
Huppert again. No, it's the other way round.

(for A.)

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