On the shore

Five classic movies inspired by the French coastline.

 

MOST TEEN ANGST

Pauline à la Plage (1983) Pauline at the Beach, Eric Rohmer

It has been wryly noted that if everyone lived in Eric Rohmer’s world, we’d all be tanned and miserable. Certainly his summer yarns – of which Pauline à la Plage is amongst the most accessible – ooze the sultriness of été from every frame. There’s farce, fi bbing and fl irtation aplenty yet, as with all Rohmer stories, dialogue supplants action to no small degree. So we get meditations on the nature of love and the machinations of adult relationships with their attendant deceit and disillusionment, as witnessed by straight-laced, 15-year-old Pauline (Amanda Langlet) while on holiday in Normandy with her older cousin (a coquettish Arielle Dombasle). Idyllic locations, notably the beach and summer house, play key roles – watch out, too, for a cameo by Mont Saint-Michel.

MOST SUMMER FUN

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Jacques Tati

In which France’s lanky king of farce, Jacques Tati, takes his most famous creation – the titular, feckless mishap-magnet – for a gaffe packed seaside break in pretty Saint-Marc-sur-Mer near Saint-Nazaire in Loire-Atlantique. After rocking up to the civilised and modest Hôtel de la Plage, the pipe-smoking buffoon unwittingly irritates his uptight fellow guests. There are inspired, largely dialogue-free set-pieces but, as with all Tati-directed fi lms, there’s pathos and satire too. The new holiday-taking social stratum of 1953 is gently lampooned via incidental characters, as are Marxist ‘intellos’ and rotund capitalists. The writing for this French comedy classic earned Tati and Henri Marquet a best original screenplay Oscar nomination, while its international success allowed many cinema-goers to fall in love with France for the fi rst time.

MOST EMOTIONAL

De Rouille et d’Os (2012) Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard

Antibes is the location, and trauma is the watchword for this intense tale of second chances. One of our picks of 2012, it features a sublime performance from France’s go-to actress for demanding roles, Marion Cotillard, playing a whale-trainer whose life is turned upside down by a terrible accident. Amid the horror, hope presents itself in the bulky frame of bolshy, rough-hewn single father Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), who makes his euros in bare-knuckle fi ghts. But what of the fi lm’s seaside setting? The vaunted clear light and sun-drenched warmth of the Riviera – so beloved of artists down the centuries – conspire to burn the screen and dazzle the viewer during the fi lm’s rare uplifting moments, while action in murkier waters away from the holiday trail (this is no tourist board advert), lend authenticity to this odd-couple tale, embedding it fi rmly in the coastal milieu.

MOST REFLECTIVE

Les Plages d’Agnès (2008) The Beaches of Agnès, Agnès Varda

A pick from left-field perhaps, but the French coast means many things to many people, as witnessed in this splendid under-the-radar (outside of France, at least) documentary by the Belgiumborn octogenarian photographer, fi lmmaker and wife of post-New Wave director Jacques Demy (see below), Agnès Varda. Her fragmented memories of la mer are joined like dots from an eventful life – from a wartime escape en famille to the harbour at Sète, via Corsica where she learned the ways of the world – and how to repair nets – with fi shermen, through to her melancholic 2006 fi lm about widows living on the île de Noirmoutier. Ignoring the conspicuous ‘sands of time’ imagery, Varda’s creative life in summation is lyrical, playful and uplifting – just like great sunny days at the beach ought to be.

MOST ROMANTIC

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy

This little gem is the second in a trilogy by Jacques Demy – it comes after Lola (1961) and before The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). With a wonderful score by Michel Legrand and precisely choreographed street scenes, this romantic tragedy tells in song the tale of a young brolly seller (a luminously attractive Catherine Deneuve, on debut) who falls pregnant just before her lover leaves for military service. She marries well in his absence, but upon his return the crushing heartbreak of compromise and lost faith in love is realised. Along with Rochefort – where Demy’s follow-up was fi lmed three years later – few French towns can have received so much free branding. It helps Cherbourg’s cause that the fi lm was a smash hit and today sits as a stone-cold classic in its unique genre – a kind of cinematic opera. Have tissues on hand for the sad, snowy dénouement

 

Originally published in the June-July 2013 issue of France Today.