[LMS] Les temps qui changent

Les temps qui changent, by Andre Techine' (France 2004)

Interesting movie, that I found rather difficult to "read". There is a tangle, or rather a side-by-side layout, of relationship between people, and a life experience that I do not have is necessary to tell whether there are any conceptual links between the various stories that run in parallel or if they are added to the plot in order to make the movie a bit fatter. So I abstain on this point.

A word on the plot. Gerard Depardieu is an engineer that for the last thirty years has kept thinking about the great love of his life from whom he split as a young man (that is C. Deneuve). Push and pull and turn (not shown in the movie) and he can get to be posted to a work assignment in Tangiers where she lives and is married to a doctor that obviously does not love her. With obvious developments, and the collection of parallel stories that I was talking about in the previous paragraph: her son with live-in girlfriend and lover boyfriend, the twin sister of the live-in girlfriend and I think that makes all of the parallel stories.

Ok, so not about the stories but I can talk about something else. interesting for example that a constant feature in the movie is hurry, for all the characters (even for who had waited so long) and for all the situations, and I shall commit myself to a definite opinion saying that Techine' did that on purpose, it is a directing choice that is kept up with consistency for the whole movie. The first observation is a bit obvious; hurry has two effects in the actions of people. It makes it more difficult that people communicate, but at the same time it makes it easier to avoid communicating, given that for many characters of this movie is quite impossible to confront the main issues in their lives.

For what regards hurry I would add that in my opinion it isn't by chance that in so many scenes the characters are busy with two things at the same time, it is a sort of reflection of their ambiguity. The doctor looks at the x-rays while he is drying himself, Depardieu sends flower to Deneuve during a work meeting, Deneuve chases away Depardieu while she is busy with her radio program, Sami's girlfriend steals prescriptions from the doctor while he is somewhere else (ops, this one does not support my argument). And naturally, Depardieu thinks about Deneuve while he walks, and this is why ... this would be too big of a spoiler so I don't write it here.

Especially for this movie I would really like to hear the opinion of someone else, I found the opinions and reviews on the Internet rather obscure; and don't worry, you can write to me in years, when you will have had a chance to see it.