Of all the talented French directors these days, Benoit Jacquot may be the least on the radar for U.S. arthouse audiences. His one bona fide splash was “A Single Girl,” which made a European star out of Virginie Ledoyen.
Breathlessly prolific, Jacquot has made 10 features and one TV movie since that 1995 success, but few of them have been released here outside of New York. His films tend to be droll and quietly humorous, including “Sade,” a much more interesting look at the notorious Marquis de Sade than “Quills.”
His latest is “A Tout de Suite.” Maybe it’s getting a better release than usual because it has a sexy subject: a young woman who runs away with a bank robber.
The film is loosely based on the 1970s experiences of Elisabeth Fanger. Jacquot’s story begins in 1975, and is narrated by a 19-year-old, unnamed art student. She’s played by Isild Le Besco.
This listless girl lives in her father’s upper-class Paris apartment, needled by an older sister but generally free to do as she pleases. One night she picks up a Moroccan boy (Ouassini Embarek) and brings him home to bed (she’s good at sneaking around, a talent that will serve her well).
Some nights later, he calls from the middle of a bank robbery, which he and a friend have perpetrated. Someone’s been shot. He needs a place to hide out.
| No fling: A black-and-white film chronicling an upper-class girl (Isild Le Besco) who runs off with her bank robber boyfriend in 1970s France. Director Benoit Jacquot has a somber style that keeps this from seeming like an exciting fling. (In French, with English subtitles.)
Rated: R rating is for nudity, violence. Now showing: Varsity. |
After meeting up, the couple immediately (“a tout de suite,” you might say) goes on the run, along with the other criminal and his girlfriend. The quartet nervously crosses the border into Spain, where they pass some idyllic days of feeling dangerous and on the lam. Things get more complicated when they debark for Morocco.
“A Tout de Suite” is in black and white, a rarity these days, which gives a period feel and a chance to layer in some newsreel footage. I wonder if it’s also meant to recall the quick, off-the-cuff films of the 1960s French New Wave; this movie seems much in the spirit of Jean Luc-Godard’s “Breathless,” although Jacquot has his own somber style.
It’s not an easy film to cozy up to, despite its momentum. Blond leading lady Le Besco, one of those offbeat actresses the French love to love, is laid-back and impassive to the point of sleepiness. However, she does convey the kind of languid, sponge-like personality that might be susceptible to walking out on her normal life and running away with an outlaw. It’s to Jacquot’s credit that he doesn’t make this decision seem like an exciting fling, but a dangerous half-dream.
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