By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Benoît Jacquot
Starring: Benoît Poelvoorde | Catherine Deneuve | Charlotte Gainsbourg | Chiara Mastroianni
Original language title: 3 Coeurs
Country: belgium, france, germany
Year: 2015
Running time: 106
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2822742/combined
Kyle says: “Opening Night of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s series ‘20th Rendez-Vous with French Cinema’ was Benoît Jacquot’s 3 HEARTS in its U.S. Premiere. Those who like their French films about doomed affairs of the heart intense and inevitable may enjoy this one; those who ask for more from movies, such as subtlety and surprise, probably will not. Lonely tax inspector Marc (Benoît Poelvoorde) encounters lonely Sylvie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in a virtually deserted provincial French village; they go for a walk and smoke cigarettes, a bond is formed between them, and they agree to an assignation in Paris, which fate foils. The same Marc by chance encounters Sylvie’s sister Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni), offers to do some tax work for her, and commences a courtship overseen by their mother Madame Berger (Catherine Deneuve), leading to marriage, pregnancy and a problematic reunion with Sylvie. At 45 minutes, the voice of an omniscient narrator notes the passage of time by observing fatuously, ‘Once again, life goes on.’ The plot is complicated by the introduction of a potential tax fraud case involving the mayor who was present at the wedding of Sophie and Marc.
“Although stylistically intrusive, the introduction of the narrator commences a tightly paced, inexorable drive to the film’s conclusion. There is no doubt what that conclusion will be, only the nature of the specific human damage. But the potential success of 3 HEARTS is virtually sabotaged by an egregious music score, which I will henceforth regard as a textbook case of how not to use music in a film. The miscreant is composer Bruno Coulais, and the crime is constant repetition of a single low unison in the bottom range of the string section, which initially conjures memories of John Williams’ Stravinsky
evocation for the marauding shark in JAWS (1975). It signals that all is not well with the drama about to unfold, continues to suggest bad things about the principal characters and their relationships, insistently remind us that things are going to end badly, and ultimately is so nonsensically repetitive as to induce dreariness and disappointment.
‘Since the actor playing Marc is generally an emotional cipher, which must be director Jacquot’s intention, there remain three reasons to sit through this film — in alphabetical order, Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Chiara Mastroianni. From her iconic status as one of the great beauties of the 1960s in works by Jacques Demy, Philippe De Broca, Roman Polanski, Luis Buñuel, and François Truffaut, through her award-winning performances on THE LAST METRO, INDOCHINE, and 8 WOMEN, to her gradual but invigorating transition into character performances in André Téchiné’s CHANGING TIMES, Arnaud Desplechin’s A CHRISTMAS TALE, Christophe Honoré’s BELOVED, and Emmanuelle Bercot’s recent ON MY WAY, Denueve has created one of the most enduring bodies of work of any actress in international cinema. Her Madame Berger perfectly balances an imperious matriarch with a concerned mother of two daughters who are needy in different ways. Gainsbourg, daughter of British actress Jane Birkin and French singer Serge Gainsbourg, has become the virtual must of the great Lars Von Trier from her memorable work in ANTICHRIST, MELANCHOLIA, and NYMPHOMANIAC. Her performance raises the non-committal; a seeming inability to make decisions, to the level of the sublime, and her ferocity in both fleeing from and hurling herself at Marc is the highlight of 3 HEARTS. Mastroianni, the daughter of Marcello and Deneuve, gives her best performance to date, demonstrating hitherto untapped emotional vulnerability as the daughter who thinks she has won the ideal man,
whose alcoholism and heart disease turn out to be the least of his defects. 3 cats
“Seen Friday, March 6, 2015, ‘Rendez-Vous with French Cinema’, Alice Tully Hall, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York.”