Le Roman de ma femme (2011)
Directed by Jamshed Usmonov

Film Review

The acclaimed Tajik filmmaker Jamshed Usmonov makes his French film debut with this distinctive mystery drama, a film that combines the elements of Claude Chabrol's darker psychological dramas with the glacial austerity of Robert Bresson's late period.  Le Roman de ma femme is Usmonov's fourth film and is a complete contrast with the three films he made in his native Tajikistan which brought him international critical attention: Flight of the Bee (1998), Angel on the Right (2002) and To Get to Heaven, First You Have to Die (2006).  The most obvious influence is Georges Simenon, a writer whom Usmonov evidently admires and seeks to evoke in this chillingly opaque study in manipulation, which pits a distraught young widow against a shady and opportunistic older lawyer, neither of whom is quite what they seem.

Whilst the film falls down slightly in the screenwriting department (much of the dialogue feels painfully mechanical), intense performances from Léa Seydoux and Olivier Gourmet, two of French cinema's finest actors, make it a compelling and deeply disturbing work.  Since her memorable breakthrough in Christophe Honoré's La Belle personne (2008), Seydoux has become one of France's most sought-after actresses; among the directors lining up to exploit her talents are Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Ridley Scott (Robin Hood) and Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris).  Le Roman de ma femme marks an important transition for Léa Seydoux, from adolescent to young woman, and the performance she gives here is easily one of her best.  The ambiguity and duplicity of Seydoux's role suits her perfectly - note how her entire personality and appearance seem to change according to the lighting and the décor around her.  Ève is a character that we are not expected to understand - she is an enigma, the mystifying femme fatale that no man can resist and no one can fathom.

Olivier Gourmet's character is just as ambiguous, and this is what makes the film so unsettling and absorbing.  At first Maître Chollet appears to be the epitome of the humane lawyer, a man who is devoted to helping others (evidenced by his efforts to get a Tajik detainee released so that he can visit his wife).  But Chollet's acts of generosity appear too extravagant, and like Ève we suspect there may be a darker purpose to his actions.  There is obviously a game of cat and mouse in play, but we cannot be sure who is the predator and who is the prey.  Ève and Chollet are trying a little too hard to present themselves as fragile orphans of the storm, and it soon becomes apparent that both have a hidden agenda.  The twist ending (which owes far more to Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac than Simenon) should have us jumping out of our seats in surprise, but it doesn't.  If you watch the film carefully enough you can see it coming.  The only real shock is that the villain of the piece suffers a crisis of conscience and takes no pleasure from the cruel victory.  Again, you are left wondering if you have completely misread the two characters.

Le Roman de ma femme is not the easiest film to engage with and it does struggle at times to get beyond the conventions of its genre, the classic French bourgeois polar that Claude Chabrol perfected in the course of his long and distinguished career.  Usmonov may lack Chabrol's finesse, but his mise-en-scène has its own austere elegance and is striking in its cold simplicity.  It is gratifying to see that Usmonov has not succumbed to the latest cinematic fad, the camera that is constantly roving all over the place like a blind inebriate on rollerskates.  Instead, his film  adheres to the classical form of mainly static shots, an old-fashioned approach but one that works beautifully to create a sustained mood of oppression.  With the camera fixed remorselessly on them, the two main protagonists look as if they are prisoners, trapped in a web of self-pity and subterfuge.  The actors are both obviously conscious of this and use it to their advantage, seizing our attention with some riveting moments of introspection and confrontation.

The editing is as restrained as the camerawork, resulting in a film that is so languorously paced that it hardly seems to move at all, something that adds to the tension and the slowly growing sense of unease.  The film's stillness is of course entirely deceptive, for beneath the surface placidity we can easily sense the maelstrom of a human feeling that is raging.  Chollet's developing obsession with possessing what he believes to be the perfect woman has echoes of Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), as does Ève's carefully concealed dual character.  Whilst Usmonov cannot match the brilliance of Hitchcock's direction, he nonetheless delivers a work of comparable depth, complexity and alluring mystique.

Film Synopsis

Ève, a wealthy young woman, is devastated when her husband Paul goes missing, leaving her with a mountain of debt.  As the police begin their investigation into Paul's mysterious disappearance, Chollet, a lawyer friend of Paul's, offers moral and financial support to Ève.  Having recently lost his wife, Chollet finds it easy to sympathise with Ève's predicament and they find mutual solace in each other's company.  But as their relationship becomes more intimate, the police start to get suspicious.  It appears that Chollet instigated the crisis that ruined Ève's husband, but for what motive...?