Summary
In adolescence, Nathalie and Louise’s childhood friendship turns to passionate love,
but when Louise sees her lesbian lover flirting with men she puts an abrupt end to the
relationship. Ten years later, the two women meet up by chance – Louise has
abandoned her drama studies to pursue a career in dentistry whilst Nathalie is becoming
a successful stage actress. Although Louise is married and Nathalie is romantically
attached to her director, the two women soon rekindle their former love – with dramatic
consequences…
Review
Catherine Corsini’s moody portrayal of an impossible yet ineluctable romance has
echoes of François Truffaut’s later films, particularly La
Femme d’à côté. Corsini’s darkest
and most introspective film to date, La Répétition offers an uncompromising
– almost clinical – examination of a thorny lesbian relationship involving
two characters for whom life, it would appear, is nothing less than an abstract piece
of theatre.
Whilst the film shows increasing maturity in Corsini’s direction (assisted by Agnès
Godard’s excellent cinematography), it is not an easy film to watch. Despite
respectable performances from the two lead actresses, it is difficult to find their on-screen
relationship credible, and the fact that neither character is particularly sympathetic
doesn’t help. Films set in the milieu of the acting profession generally have
an irksome self-indulgent, navel-contemplating feel to them and La Répétition
, regrettably, appears to fit that pattern. Ironically, the character which
most actors fail to portray convincingly or sympathetically is another actor, and this
is perhaps the main reason why this film fails to satisfy. Emmanuelle Béart
and Pascale Bussières are both hugely talented actresses but it is hard to feel
anything for them in this film, so seemingly empty and implausible is the characterisation
they offer us.
Although La Répétition may not be the most compelling or original
of recent French films, the mood and style of the piece offers a welcome antidote to the
shallow glossy trash which takes up most screen time in cinemas these days. It may
not be Catherine Corsini’s best film, but it confirms her talent as a serious director
and offers a tantalising foretaste of the much more significant films she will undoubtedly
give us in the future.
© James Travers 2004
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