When they first met Sarah and Jean, they enjoyed their vacation. To be precise, they are just painting the romantic fulfillment of middle age in the sunny lagoon waters. The fact that Sarah and Jean are played by Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon are two of the most charismatic actors of a particular age in modern cinema, making their apparent bliss even more enviable.
But the pictures only tell a part of the story. The couple’s smile and caress are accompanied by gloomy and cello-heavy music. This signals that something bad will happen, even for the least alert or deaf viewers. Even if the sound gets brighter and Jean and Sara return to a neat Parisian apartment, the fear cannot be shaken.
“Both Sides of the Blade” is a movie by Claire Doni. This means that expectations can be confused, including those that appear to be set by themselves. Sex, politics, vampires, science fiction, Herman Melville-nothing is different for this restless and witty filmmaker.
Here, the plot is sometimes drawn to a romantic comedy when he finds Sarah torn between Jean and François (Gregoire Colin). But the mood floats near soap opera, thrillers, and even horror. Sarah’s passion for Francois is like a form of possession, and references to Jean’s status as a former prisoner contribute to a sense of freedom.
The disagreement between the structure and tone of the movie is potentially interesting, and the unbalanced strength of the performance means that “both sides of the blade” are never dull. As we did in “Let the Sunshine In,” Vinosh and Dennis follow the devastating effects of their desire for women who are neither heroines nor victims. Sarah’s urge to destabilize her family life is also mysterious to her, and the audience sees why she is poorer and moody (in her bed) than Jean, who is stoic and sad. You may be wondering if it looks like you like it.
Bad choices are often a good story, but there is a thin, tentative one that Dennis wrote with Christine Angott. Sarah is the host of public relations radio broadcasts, a task that allows films to occasionally glimpse the wider world. Guests talk about the crisis in Lebanon and the prevalence of racism in Western societies, and their presence in the film is a puzzle. Maybe it reminds me if Sarah cares about such a problem, Dennis cares about it, or should. Alternatively, Dennis may point out the gap between public concerns and private experience.
The bigger problem is that the protagonists and their situation look weightless, and their non-romantic life was sketched in a hurry and without much conviction. Jean sometimes travels to the suburbs to visit his mother, Nelly (Bur Ogier), who takes care of his teenage son Marcus (Issapelica). The young man whose mother is disappearing is interracial and becomes a too useful symbol of the social issues that the film ignores. He seems to be a stereotype because he steals Nelly’s credit card and does terrible things at school, and we know almost nothing about him as a character.
Marcus’s actions provoke anger from his father towards “general discourse” that emphasizes identity rather than individuality.Like Sarah’s radio show segment, this diatribe le wokisme Wave in the direction of modern reality without engaging in it.
On the other hand, Sarah Jahn François’ love triangle grows and loses momentum as a source of drama as tears come out. The solution — and I mean this as a literal explanation — is a bad joke. How strange it is that a unique and fearless filmmaker like Dennis made such a general and tentative film.
Both sides of the blade
Unrated. In French, with subtitles. Execution time: 1 hour 56 minutes. At the theater.
