"It blows me over to drink champagne on the first
day of the new century with the only two men I
have ever loved." Marie, in _Love etc._

Coincidence or not, both _The Mad Women's Ball_ and _White
as Snow_ open with the image of the back of lead actress
Lou de Laage's head. Whereas Melanie Laurent's prison
film highlights the spirituality of her well-coiffed
heroine quietly attending a writer's public funeral, Anne
Fontaine emphasizes the actress' physicality. Her Claire
is jogging, ponytail in the air. She pauses for a
violinist's rendition of a Bach partita. Claire plays
the intrument, and shares the chaste reserve seemingly
innate to all violinists. She might be exactly what the
Grimm Brothers have in mind as "Snow White."

_White as Snow_ is about Claire outgrowing that shyness,
awakening from a cloistered chambermaid existence, living
life to the fullest. The film is director Anne Fontaine's
sly update of the fairy tale. Isabelle Huppert plays her
jealous stepmom, who has inherited her late husband's
upscale resort. Agata Buzek (who, like de Laage, starred
in Fontaine's _The Innocents_) has a cameo as a hit-woman.
She deposits Claire in the forest, just like the killer in
the original. Fontaine foretells the rural motif with a
night lamp in Claire's bedroom. She foretells a great many
things visually and aurally, and makes good use of narrow
mountain passes and stunning locales in La Salette-Fallavaux.

Claire is saved by twin brothers, the first of her seven
dwarfs, and bunks at their humble farmhouse. The dwarfs
are not physically small -- one is a martial arts expert --
just emotionally stunted. There are also an aging book
seller into S&M, his angry son, a priest, a vet, and a
classical musician too shy to even kiss her hand. They
all love her, and not just platonically; Claire acts on
her desire for the first time in her life, and is
transformed into a dangerous beauty ("the fairest maiden")
men start fist fight about. Lou de Laage always has that
ability to command a dance floor with her sexuality, but
here she exceeds her work in _Breathe_ and _L'Attesa_
and positively conjures up Dances of the Seven Veils.
But the most erotic scene may be the one where she does
an impromptu variation to accompany the cellist's Bach
suite #1. (Can de Laage play the violin? She is
convincing with a cello in _It Happened in Saint-Tropez_,
but is less so here.)

Huppert's evil stepmom catches up with Claire but her
poisonous scheme is constantly, accidentally foiled
by the dwarfs. Tellingly, there is no Prince to trap
Claire in another prison. At the end of the film she
is awakened by the dwarf's kisses and live happily
(but one surmises, not completely peacefully) as their
object of adoration.

The central theme is the maiden's awakening. Yet
there is no trace of the Anglo-American "woke" ideology
in _White as Snow_. Indeed, while the far right French
political entities also exploit this movement, the
French are almost united in opposition to race- and
gender-based politics, which offend their Republican
ideals. In a time when democracy is in retreat and
is demoralized by anti-liberal instincts from both
the extreme left and right, we will once again have to
look to French cinema to lead the way back to sanity.

---------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of women who strong-arm their way to their
destinies and life-partners, _Jules and Jim_ is certainty
the paradigm to beat. Marion Vernoux's _Love etc..._,
also about a love triangle, is adapted from a Julian
Barnes novel, which may or may not have been influenced
by Truffaut. This is my favorite Charlotte Gainsbourg
film, which is saying quite a bit ... She plays a
compact restorer of oil paintings, Yvan Attal is her
sweet but uncharismatic banker husband, and Charles
Berling is the flamboyant best friend and college
teacher who steals the bride. The leads give very
sympathetic performances and are afforded chances to
express their innermost thoughts via "break the fourth
wall" soliloquy or, in Berling's case, in chats with a
captive chorus audience. (A very nice touch has Attal's
character try the same, but he is treated with disdain;
you just can't legislate attractiveness, "woke" or not.)
Vernoux uses very shallow focus lenses and overexposed
backgrounds (at least they come off as such in the DVD),
so that the fate of the universe seems to hinge on their
every quirk, every desire. Gainsbourg is magnificent
throughout, her delayed reactions to her suitors -- be
they flashes of rage or her trademark wide smile --
underscore a contemplative intelligence. Leonard Cohen's
_Take this Waltz_ famously serenades the reunited lovers
at the end, when they keep their vow to celebrate the
turn of century on the channel beaches. Suddenly that
watershed day was 21 years ago! It is lovely to have
this small gem to document the passage of time in such
bittersweet fashion.

I bought the _Love etc._ DVD from the last remaining
Rasputin store in the Bay Area. It used to have
branches in the most expensive part of downtown San
Francisco and in the Haight-Ashbury hippie district.
Now the Berkeley store is open 4 days a week. I'm
sure next time I visit, the landmark would be gone.
The Fox Lorber DVD is of VHS transfer quality, but it
is a valuable reminder of DVD's glory days. The
_White as Snow_ DVD took 2 months to arrive by mail;
the Cohen Film Group makes so few copies nowadays!
(But am I grateful for their rear-guard determination.)
One day no one will have heard of _Love etc..._, or
Anne Fontaine, or Rasputin. And surely that is just
as sad as the loss of as communal cinematic experience
in the multiplexes.

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