Love doesn’t carry all the answers. Just act the characters of French director Philippe Garrel’s In The Shadow Of Women.
Although when we first meet Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and Manon (Clotidle Courau) all seems well. The couple seem to have found a happy balance between their work and their romance. He’s a documentarian working on a film about the French Resistance during the Second World War. She works part time and helps Pierre out on his films when she can, shelving her on dreams and future plans in order for him to make his mark as a filmmaker.
All seems well, until one day when Pierre meets a history students named Elisabeth (Lena Paugam) who is interning at the history archives where he’s doing research. The fresh relationship sparks an affair that Pierre soon brings home to his relationship with Manon, acting cold and dismissive. It doesn’t take long for Monon to figure things out, and soon she embarks on her own affair with a boring, rather plain business man named Fédir (Mounir Margoum).
In a brisk run time of 72 minutes, Garrel gets right to the point. He shoots the film in simple but elegant black and white, using a simple style to give his film an even more romantic French feel. His film carries a sense of humor and self-awareness of sorts that drives the points made by these characters unfaithful actions to the core, hitting all of us hopeless romantics who have experienced some sort of betrayal where it hurts. It’s absurd at times, but also aware about the themes that come with adultery, such as entitlement that Pierre feels when explaining himself.
So often with films focused on partners cheating on one another, the director usually picks a side and condemns the characters action. This is not the case with Garrel’s film, there’s no judging to be found, just the actions, and we are left to watch it unfold before our eyes, and come up with our own conclusions. In refreshing fashion, this made the viewing experience of In The Shadow Of Women, that much more enjoyable.
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