Home for the holidays
Published 7:00 am Monday, October 9, 2006
LA BۃHE
directed by Dani謥 Thompson with Sabine Az魡, Emmanuelle B顲t, Fran篩se Fabian, and Charlotte Gainsbourg runs Dec. 14-20 at Varsity
AS RICH AND as easily consumed as bche de No묬 a traditional Yule log-shaped French Christmas dessert, this Bche is a delight, a civilized comedy of character and observation with a glittering cast: Sabine Az魡 (Sunday in the Country), Emmanuelle B顲t (Manon of the Spring), and Charlotte Gainsbourg (The Little Thief) as sisters born of artist parents; and Fran篩se Fabian (My Night at Maud’s) as their mother.
Warm, poignant, and knowing, La Bche is also intensely French, which means that almost no marriage has stayed sacred. Nevertheless (and especially at Christmas), appearances will be kept up, wives placated, lovers denied, and the facade of family reinforced—whatever the cost.
The sisters are from the marriage of former actress Yvette (Fabian) and her first husband, Stanislas, a Russian Jewish 魩gr頶iolinist. It’s been 25 acrimonious years since they’ve seen each other, after Yvette left Stanislas to marry another, possibly better, musician.
The funeral of this second husband, Dec. 21, brings the daughters together in solidarity with their mother, while around them all Paris is in a pre-Christmas frenzy. Older daughters Louba (Az魡) and Sonia (B顲t) dutifully walk with their mother behind their stepfather’s coffin. This “third violin at Radio France” was apparently revered enough that the orchestra’s conductor is even there to pay his respects. The 1999 film’s seriocomic tone is set as a ringing cell phone sends all these elegant mourners scrambling through their St. Laurent and Givenchy jackets to throttle the bell. Milla (Gainsbourg), the youngest, is last to arrive—sleek in shiny black that matches her motor scooter and hard-charging high-tech life. She’s there reluctantly, since she always resented the stepfather she believed broke up her parents’ marriage.
Over the next four days while their mother mourns—wreathed in pashmina, cashmere, and memories—first-time director Dani謥 Thompson delicately lays out the lives of these daughters, blessed and wounded as the children of artists and of divorce.
THERE MAY NOT soon be a cast (and crew) as sensitive to both these conditions. B顲t and Gainsbourg are both daughters of famous, successful artists. Thompson, who says she wrote from memories of her Russian musician grandfather, has been a successful screenwriter since the mid-’60s (from La Boum to Queen Margot), and her co-writer here is her son, Christopher, who also plays Joseph, the brooding, handsome “handyman” in the Stanislas household.
Whatever the source, the screen seems to brim with insights from both sides of the camera. Forty-two-year-old Louba has stayed closest to her father’s heritage. Unmarried and now living at the rambling family house with him, she makes her living singing and dancing at the Paris equivalent of the Russian Tea Room. Even if the songs are threadbare tourist stuff, Louba delivers them from the depths of a Russian soul.
Louba’s love life has revolved around the same married lover for 12 years, possibly perked up by their trysts in the deluxe houses he shows to his real-estate company’s clients. Now, even the loyal Louba is at a crossroads.
Sonia has gone straight for security, a “successful” marriage and two children. To Milla, she’s become contemptibly Town and Country. Yet even a woman as exquisite and perfectionistic as Sonia can, seemingly, be replaced, and Sonia knows exactly who her replacement will be.
Milla, who calls herself a “torturer” in relationships, has buried herself in a successful career, but she can still put herself in the path of more pain as she encounters the remote Joseph.
As it manipulates all these strands, La Bche has Christmas in its crosshairs, puncturing every platitude and sentimental excess. Yet it does so with such a knowing heart that it draws bemused recognition, not blood.
