Directed by Alain Resnais. Starring Sabine Azéma, André Dussolier, Anne Consigny, Emmanuelle Devos, Club, IFI, Dublin, 104 min
DOFF YOUR chapeauxto the tribunes of the Nouvelle Vague. Last month, audiences at Cannes got to see Film Socialisme, the mad new film from Jean-Luc Godard.
At 79, that old bruiser is, however, still a good nine years younger than the great Alain Resnais.
Nobody is likely to confuse Wild Grass with earlier Resnais classics such as Last Yearat Marienbador Hiroshima, Mon Amour, but there is enough crazy energy left – indeed, he's become more playful as he ages – to keep attentive audiences awake and amused.
Based on a novel by Christian Gailly, the film concerns Georges (André Dussollier), a middle-aged man who finds a wallet recently lost by a dentist (Sabine Azéma). While tracking down the item’s owner, Georges indulges in fantasies about how she and he might interact. When the meeting does eventually take place, however, his attentions start to take on a sinister intensity.
Featuring lush chords from composer Mark Snow (he of The X-Files'spooky tweets) and playful camerawork from Eric Gautier – is that a crash-zoom I see? – these earlier sections of the film take on the flavour of a witty comic thriller. But, as events progress, Wild Grassrapidly spins into wilful absurdity and low-intensity surrealism.
In truth, Resnais’s gestures have been rehearsed and recycled so often that they have come to seem second-hand. Watching Azéma, hair teased into a vibrant red explosion, taking care of her recently acquired Spitfire (yes, the plane), you have to remind yourself that Wes Anderson was barely a glint his father’s eye when Resnais was at his dazzling best. What was once shocking and surprising now comes across like set moves in an eccentric but very familiar quasi-comic choreography.
Still, when you cast your eyes to heaven at the escalating nonsense, you tend to do so with a degree of tolerant affection. Ah, old Uncle Alain is up to his tricks again. Long may he continue.
