L’ennui
Directed by Cédric Kahn
Starring Charles Berling, Sophie Guillemin.
This film is almost inevitably going to be compared with Romance: it shows a lot of sex and full-frontal nudity, it is about unhealthy sexual obsession, and it’s French. The story is, however, based on a book written by Italian Alberto Moravia, and unlike Romance, which had nothing to do with romance, L’ennui is a very apt title. On the surface, it’s not a very encouraging title for a film: it means “boredom.” However, the word has a more literary and philosophical sense of depression and disaffection with the world. The male protagonist, Martin (Berling), is in fact a philosophy lecturer, and he’s a victim of ennui. Not that his profession really matters to the plot, except possibly as a contrast to his irrational affair with the nineteen-year-old female protagonist, Cécilia (Guillemin). The relationship seems full of contradiction. Cécilia is unthinking, selfish, amoral and completely lacking in compassion. Articulate, intellectual Martin completely fails to have any connection with her at all except on a purely physical level, yet he finds himself desperately wanting her.
Their interaction consists of hard, fast sex with no trace of affection, sensuality or fulfillment, interspersed with Martin’s attempts to break through to Cécilia by posing her questions on what she thinks and how she feels. She never answers with anything other than the most basic responses in a calm, disinterested voice. Each claims to love the other, but there is only obsession and desire to possess on Martin’s side, and only Cécilia’s wish to please herself on the other.
As a film, this is well-made, but the story is so odd that it is unclear whether the purpose of the work is achieved. There is no sense of a tragic fall from intellectual or social height for Martin, as he is only ever represented as a pathetic divorcee in a mid-life crisis. There is no sense of a triumph of female sexuality for Cécilia. There is no indication of what it is about her that leads men to such extremes. She is not particularly liberated or free-spirited, nor manipulative, nor demanding, nor even seductive or mysteriously feminine. She is perhaps impenetrable, but one gets the feeling there is nothing inside anyway: she is made of the same stuff all the way through. Neither is there any sense of progress, revelation or understanding. Martin is aware of his situation but can do nothing except live with it. Cécilia simply does not change. The characters are not quite real or believable, and the film can be read as a study of gender and sex: extremes of the male desire to possess the unobtainable and an emotionless female pursuit of pleasure and personal freedom.
The film does succeed, as is presumably its intention, in leaving the audience with some of that feeling of ennui. The obvious futility of Martin’s efforts to get something more out of the relationship and his constant questioning to no avail becomes tedious, oppressive and disturbing.
Susan Love
