To truly appreciate this film, you may either have to be French, a mystery lover or a diamond connoisseur, three things I am not. That said, the shadowy, film noir Place Vendôme, set in Paris' haute couture jewelry district, is a relatively well-crafted third film by French writer-director Nicole Garcia.
While I'm also not a huge Catherine Deneuve fan, the 57-year-old famed beauty steals the show in a performance that won her the 1998 Venice Film Festival's Best Actress award. It's a challenging, multifaceted role that she plays with due restraint, making it less maudlin and emotionally charged than it easily could have become.
Deneuve is Marianne, wife of Vincent Malivert (Bernard Fresson, with whom she starred in Buñuel's 1967 film Belle de Jour), owner of one of the most prestigious jewelry shops in the world. Once a gem broker herself, the middle-aged Marianne has fallen into an alcoholic stupor. Her relationship with Vincent is cold and hollow; she has slept at home only 17 nights in the past year, preferring instead to convalesce at various `rest homes.'
Vincent is also a troubled person. He hides the extent of his misery and the fact that his debt-ridden business is quickly going bankrupt. (plot spoiler?) When he intentionally drives his speeding Mercedes into a lumber truck, his desperation is revealed.
Garcia spends the bulk of the picture depicting Marianne's process of recovering from her addiction. Faced with relative penury in the wake of her husband's death, she relearns the art of the diamond deal as she tries to sell a handful of probably stolen gems Vincent has left her. Her turning point comes when she gazes at the stones through a loupe and revels in their inherent beauty. This in stark contrast to the rest of the cast, sundry thugs and swarthy millionaires who view the rocks as nothing more than money in the bank. In fact, one could argue that all concerned are addicts, addicted to their work and financial gain, and suitably jacked up, ruthless and miserable.
This, for me, is the film's most absorbing storyline, Marianne's renaissance and her rapprochement with actions and people from the past. Specifically, after a 20-year hiatus she reconnects with a former lover, the Russian mafia-connected Battisstelli (Jacques Dutronc in a fascinating performance), who had once sorely burned her during a jewelry sale. It's a moving moment, when she finds herself able to let go of her anger toward him, and both characters connect with their fundamental humanity. But again, it's a very subtle strand that Garcia only begins to caress near the film's end. Had she moved such human plotlines to the foreground, the film would have emerged much stronger and more poignant.
But I suppose it's unfair to expect a French film to depict Marianne's reawakening in the hat-tossing style of Mary Tyler Moore. After all, the French did coin the word anomie. Still, I wish the main character's development had become less buried in the film's insistence on utter subtlety and dreariness. I suppose the dark interior shots and seemingly unending rainy days could feel atmospheric if your antidepressant is working particularly well, but mostly they just seemed morose. That aside, Laurent Dailland's cinematography frequently stands out. I still haven't forgotten a wide-angle shot of vertical blinds in a boardroom, nor the splashes of crimson - symbolizing Marianne's suppressed then emerging passion - laced throughout the drear.
The film incorporates many classic noir-ish elements - that is, noir of the 1940s rather than the excessive, violence-parading Quentin Tarrantino variety. In the intrigue over the stolen gems, shadowy figures emerge from the woodwork. Tall, svelte beauties reveal themselves as jewelry sellers, then mistresses, then accomplices in crime. Remnants from the past, seemingly long disposed of, come back to haunt the players in nefarious ways. Truth is stark, brutal and straight, no chaser. And yet the surfaces remain as shiny and sleek as the polished glass boardroom tables at which lives and deaths, fortunes and demises are determined with stone-faced certainty.
There's something of a doppelgänger theme here too, which bears noting. Soon after Vincent's death, Marianne meets Nathalie (Emmanuelle Seigner), a young woman she suspects of being her husband's mistress. The two femmes fatale match their men as they match their hairstyles, frequently mirroring the past and future for each other.
Place Vendôme offers enough to admire that it's worth a look, especially for thriller lovers. However, it does have its share of flaws. The plot gets overly complex and becomes difficult to track in places. Though presumably adding to the air of mystery, the cuts are sometimes so quick that the action becomes confusing.
I also would have preferred more of a focus on the psychological and emotional elements, rather than the wheeling-dealings of taciturn Gallic businessmen, who seem to multiply like champagne bottles at a French wedding. Despite a good dose of suspense in some places, it was tough to care about these rapacious specimens and their greed-driven lives. In embracing her passion and extending her forgiveness, Deneuve's Marianne proves the only character truly worth watching.
While I'm also not a huge Catherine Deneuve fan, the 57-year-old famed beauty steals the show in a performance that won her the 1998 Venice Film Festival's Best Actress award. It's a challenging, multifaceted role that she plays with due restraint, making it less maudlin and emotionally charged than it easily could have become.
Deneuve is Marianne, wife of Vincent Malivert (Bernard Fresson, with whom she starred in Buñuel's 1967 film Belle de Jour), owner of one of the most prestigious jewelry shops in the world. Once a gem broker herself, the middle-aged Marianne has fallen into an alcoholic stupor. Her relationship with Vincent is cold and hollow; she has slept at home only 17 nights in the past year, preferring instead to convalesce at various `rest homes.'
Vincent is also a troubled person. He hides the extent of his misery and the fact that his debt-ridden business is quickly going bankrupt. (plot spoiler?) When he intentionally drives his speeding Mercedes into a lumber truck, his desperation is revealed.
Garcia spends the bulk of the picture depicting Marianne's process of recovering from her addiction. Faced with relative penury in the wake of her husband's death, she relearns the art of the diamond deal as she tries to sell a handful of probably stolen gems Vincent has left her. Her turning point comes when she gazes at the stones through a loupe and revels in their inherent beauty. This in stark contrast to the rest of the cast, sundry thugs and swarthy millionaires who view the rocks as nothing more than money in the bank. In fact, one could argue that all concerned are addicts, addicted to their work and financial gain, and suitably jacked up, ruthless and miserable.
This, for me, is the film's most absorbing storyline, Marianne's renaissance and her rapprochement with actions and people from the past. Specifically, after a 20-year hiatus she reconnects with a former lover, the Russian mafia-connected Battisstelli (Jacques Dutronc in a fascinating performance), who had once sorely burned her during a jewelry sale. It's a moving moment, when she finds herself able to let go of her anger toward him, and both characters connect with their fundamental humanity. But again, it's a very subtle strand that Garcia only begins to caress near the film's end. Had she moved such human plotlines to the foreground, the film would have emerged much stronger and more poignant.
But I suppose it's unfair to expect a French film to depict Marianne's reawakening in the hat-tossing style of Mary Tyler Moore. After all, the French did coin the word anomie. Still, I wish the main character's development had become less buried in the film's insistence on utter subtlety and dreariness. I suppose the dark interior shots and seemingly unending rainy days could feel atmospheric if your antidepressant is working particularly well, but mostly they just seemed morose. That aside, Laurent Dailland's cinematography frequently stands out. I still haven't forgotten a wide-angle shot of vertical blinds in a boardroom, nor the splashes of crimson - symbolizing Marianne's suppressed then emerging passion - laced throughout the drear.
The film incorporates many classic noir-ish elements - that is, noir of the 1940s rather than the excessive, violence-parading Quentin Tarrantino variety. In the intrigue over the stolen gems, shadowy figures emerge from the woodwork. Tall, svelte beauties reveal themselves as jewelry sellers, then mistresses, then accomplices in crime. Remnants from the past, seemingly long disposed of, come back to haunt the players in nefarious ways. Truth is stark, brutal and straight, no chaser. And yet the surfaces remain as shiny and sleek as the polished glass boardroom tables at which lives and deaths, fortunes and demises are determined with stone-faced certainty.
There's something of a doppelgänger theme here too, which bears noting. Soon after Vincent's death, Marianne meets Nathalie (Emmanuelle Seigner), a young woman she suspects of being her husband's mistress. The two femmes fatale match their men as they match their hairstyles, frequently mirroring the past and future for each other.
Place Vendôme offers enough to admire that it's worth a look, especially for thriller lovers. However, it does have its share of flaws. The plot gets overly complex and becomes difficult to track in places. Though presumably adding to the air of mystery, the cuts are sometimes so quick that the action becomes confusing.
I also would have preferred more of a focus on the psychological and emotional elements, rather than the wheeling-dealings of taciturn Gallic businessmen, who seem to multiply like champagne bottles at a French wedding. Despite a good dose of suspense in some places, it was tough to care about these rapacious specimens and their greed-driven lives. In embracing her passion and extending her forgiveness, Deneuve's Marianne proves the only character truly worth watching.