Watching Philippe Grandrieux’s Sombre (1998) might become difficult for some viewers. The former video artist’s feature debut contains some of the more intense scenes of sexually-based violence short of Salo (1975) that I can recall. But where Pasolini’s film is cold and distant in its depiction of disturbing acts, Grandrieux’s is claustrophobic; sometimes with action so close to the camera that almost all light is obscured. This works, to an extent, as a tactic that serves to cloud the images while holding the audience captive to the brutal action, but for much of the film it simply feels like the director’s video roots betraying him.
Most of this nearly sans plot film is captured by dizzying steadicam shots that are interspersed with sequences of quasi-experimental Brakhage-esque drivel. Yes, this could be called style by snobs and indie apologists, but it feels to me like sloppy filmmaking. This is sad when you consider that Sombre is not without quality moments and one truly touching scene. The plot involves a drifter, Jean (Marc Barbé), who travels rural While this factor staves off complete tedium the film doesn’t really hold any emotional weight throughout its first act. No inclination as to Jean’s motivation or even his personality is divulged. This remains true even as he meets a pair of very different sisters. Claire (Elina Löwensohn) and Christine (Géraldine Voillat) couldn’t have more different attitudes toward sex. One gets the sense that Christine teases Claire about retaining her virginity. Still, they love each other as sisters should. It’s not completely clear how Jean works his way into their lives, or if he’s ever even met Claire before he offers her a ride on a rain-soaked day. In either case his relationship with the sisters escalates quickly onscreen, and it’s not long before he joins them on swimming excursion at a secluded lake. Whether he’s invited on the trip or not is unclear as well, but doesn’t seem to matter to Grandrieux.
What’s interesting is how the factors that have come before don’t add up to the familiar feeling of movie suspense. Despite the film’s close camerawork, emotionally these characters couldn’t be further away from the audience. When Jean attacks Christine after she invites him to skinny dip, it’s neither surprising nor engaging. It’s just happening. With a plot full of holes it’s unclear how events develop after Claire stops the onslaught, but the film returns to its earlier pattern shortly thereafter, with both sisters as the victims. There is a surge of emotion in the last third of the movie as Claire makes a strange but somehow noble sacrifice, before finally being abandoned by Jean.
In the scene that follows, the best in the film, she sits in the kitchen of a woman whose taken pity on her, sipping tea and trying to understand her ordeal. Her words prompt this gracious host to drift into conversation about a lost love, and in a few long takes she describes an entire affair. Her words and her face are sad, but the story is beautiful, simple, and somehow it works here. In a brutal film, it is the moment of transcendence.
What happens to Jean or to Claire after this scene is unclear. Perhaps in a way she has saved him from the monster that he is, but no one can ever know. For most of this picture I was convinced that its director was lost; directionless perhaps even more so than his subject. Reflecting on the film, I’m not so certain. At its outset, before we ever meet Jean, a prologue sequence displays children sitting in a theatre and watching horror film. That’s what I’d expected this piece to be, but I was mistaken. Though cited as horror I believe that it is a commentary on horror. We are the children, scared to look at the darkness inside of ourselves, afraid to admit what we fear that we might find. That doesn’t make it good, but at least it has some thought behind it. The picture also apparently has something to do with the Tour de France, but I’m still mulling that over.
Language: French
Runtime: 112 Minutes
Available from Netflix.com
Grade: 1.5 Hats Off
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