Rendez-vous

Nina is a young novice actress who has travelled from her home in Toulouse to the French capital and has managed to secure a small part in a play produced by a local reparatory company.  After the ordeal of flat sharing she decides to find her own apartment. During this transitional period she meets a timid young real estate agent Paulot who immediately fall’s in love with this free-spirited young women and persuades her to share his flat while he is attempting to locate the right property for her. Already sharing Paulot's living space is Quentin an aggressive, emotionally disturbed actor who attempts to seduce Nina and encourage her to join him in his live sex show. Into this emotionally charged triangle steps the elderly theatrical director Scrutzier whose daughter died when she was involved with Quentin in a suicide pact from which he survived.

The film won an Award for Best Director at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival for Andre Techine, known by this blogger for his 2009 movie The Girl on a Train about an aimless girl who lies about being the victim of a hate crime. Rendez-vous (1985) is a dark and powerful story about relationships, love and sexual desire. It stars Juliette Binoche in her first leading role as Nina, French TV star Wadeck Stanczak as Paulot, Lambert Wilson, best known for Princess of Montpensier (2010) and Of Gods and Men (2010) is the ultra intense Quentin, with Amour (2012) co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant as Scrutzier. Techine co wrote the screenplay with another great French auteur Oliver Assayas.

 

The beginning of a intense and dangerous relationships.

An intense relationship drama between three emotionally scarred young people involving love and sexual desire and frustration with classic performances from all actors involved especially the young Binoche who really stands out. A high point in Andre Techine exceptional body of work: recommended. 

The Princess of Montpensier

Bertrand Tavernier based his latest film on a short story by a Madame de La Fayette which was published anonymously in 1662 and tells of a heroine who falls in love with someone other than the man she’s married to, nothing new there then. The Princess of Montpensier (2010) is set at a time when France was torn apart by bitter religious wars and like Patrice Chereau’s 1994 French period drama La Reine Margot includes the notorious St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 in which French Catholics massacred between 5000 and 30000 Huguenot Protestants.

Marie de Mezieres (Melanie Thierry) is a beautiful young heiress who has been instructed by her father that she is to be betrothed to the Prince of Montpensier as part of an alliance between the two families. It is true to say that she does develop affection for her new husband but clearly she remains attracted to her childhood sweetheart, the dashing young Henri de Guise. While the Prince is away doing battle he leaves Marie at the remote family castle under the tutorage of his old mentor Francois de Chavannes (Lambert Wilson) who also declares his love for the Princess, get in the queue son, cause the Duke of Anjou fancies his chances as well!! This is what happens when you’ve got no telly. Needless to say she finally settles on the ‘bad lad’ and therefore loses everything ending up in a convent: that will teach the foolish minx!!!!

The Princess of Montpensier  

As is typical with most French historical period dramas you get lots of swashbuckling, bloodshed and sexual shenanigans in draughty corridors and massive king size beds. You’d think that with no obvious heating and therefore lots of layers of clothing you would loose interest very quickly, but no they carry on like rabbits. Most women would give their right arm for Marie’s wardrobe, brilliant cinematography, great acting from its young cast and it was good to see Lambert Wilson let him self go a little after the seriousness of Of Gods and Men (2010). At two hours twenty minutes it’s a long film but soon goes when all that excitement and passion engulfs you.