Une vieille maîtresse (2007) Reviews

• Not really what you'd expect, but not too bad either

  lazarillo2007-11-11

  Although I've seen several of them now, I still don't know if I actually LIKE Catherine Breillat films. Her films are a strange contradiction: On one hand, they contain a lot of pretty graphic sex and always feature some of the most attractive actresses in Europe (and this one with Asia Argento and Roxanne Mesquia is certainly no exception). On the other though, they are often very depressing and told with such a harsh feminist bent that they probably make most people (well, most men anyway)feel more like castrating themselves than getting turned on. ( I actually haven't even seen her most notorious film, "Fat Girl", but after the truly depressing experience that was the supposedly very similar "36 Fillete" I've never wanted to). You would expect then given Breillat's typical misanthropic bent that when she made a French costume drama like this one, the liaisons would be even more dangerous and the intentions even crueler. This is actually a surprisingly soft-hearted film though where all the main characters are pretty likable and sympathetic (at least in some ways). The only typically harsh Breillat touch is a couple having frenzied sex next to the funeral pyre of their dead daughter. The basic story involves a handsome young rake, who is about to marry a beautiful young heiress (Mesquia) with the blessing of her jaded-but-wise grandmother (who, since this is set in 1835, is herself a battle-scarred veteran of the original pre-revolutionary "dangerous liaison" era). He is unable to give up his long-time mistress, however, a social-climbing Spanish divorcée (Argento) with whom he has had a passionate ten year love-hate relationship. All the acting is very good and the characters believable (although you do have to wonder why a 19th Spanish noblewoman would have a tattoo on her butt). My only real complaint was that it was about a half an hour too long and the climax was pretty anti-climactic. If you like either French costume dramas or typical Catherine Breillat films, you may or may not like this, since it ends being very different than either. It's not too bad though.

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• Twisting conventions in high style

  Chris Knipp2007-10-05

  Breillat's films are mostly small budget contemporary provocations with a feminist bent. This one, her twelfth, she says cost as much as ten previous ones and is a costume drama based on a controversial novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-1889). This is a bit confusing: the film begins by saying it's the century of Choderlos de Laclos (author of Dangerous Liaisons). but his famous work was written in 1782, and the action of d'Aurevilly's novel is set in 1835. The point is, the story is about the French aristocracy, and in the early nineteenth century its members still believed in and lived by the libertinism of Laclos. In fact The Last Mistress (Une vieille maitresse) is a transitional story that links the two centuries and in a sense presents a romantic conception of the eighteenth century. Ryno de Marigny (beautiful newcomer Fu'ad Ait Aattou) is a high born young man who has squandered his wealth on his Spanish mistress, the willful Vellini (Asia Argento, in her element), with whom he's been involved for ten years. Allocine calls Ryno "a kind of romantic Valmont." But that's just it: there was nothing romantic about de Laclos' cruel and manipulative Valmont and Ryno is a new post-eighteenth-century conception of the eighteenth-century libertine that is titillated by his freedom but adds the emotional dressing of romantic passion. Breillat obviously loves this combination, is at home with it, and has given it deliriously appropriate treatment in this minor but beautiful, lush, and thoroughly enjoyable film. The Breillat touch is perhaps most visible in the love-making scenes between Vellini and Ryno, in which there is much nudity and specificity of physical detail. Fu'ad Ait Aattou has pale skin and bigger lips than Asia Argento. By intention, both are androgynous; this is Breillat's conception of Choderlos de Laclos's and d'Aurevilly's libertines. The two actors are perfectly matched for this. Vellini is the aggressor; it is she who makes love with Ryno, using him like a lovely male statue made of alabaster. He is passionate like a romantic lover, however: that is, he's hung up on her forever, no matter what he tries. Early on, he fights a duel with her English husband and is wounded in the shoulder. The sex sequences are specific and fleshy as in no other costume drama, but Breillat is not creating an anachronistic work. As she explained in the NYFF press Q&A, she is passionate about the quality of her period detail and bought tons of lush materials and costumes. The dress, the jewelry, and the interiors are all completely authentic, and there is a rich color scheme in which red and green and yellow predominate. Without seeming over-glossy (it's not eye-candy like Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette), The Last Mistress is a pleasure to look at. It's also a pleasure to listen to, with its choice use of ornate and witty language. Oldtimer Michael Lonsdale as the gossipy Le vicomte de Prony particularly relishes his well-turned phrases. As the story gets under way, Ryno has now found a wife, the beautiful young blonde noblewoman Hermangarde (Breillat regular Roxane Mesquida), and he's in love with her, and tired of Villini. Hermangarde's grandmother, the Marquise de Flers (non-actress Claude Sarraute, daughter of novelist Nathalie) is responsible for vetting Ryno, and in a lengthy sequence that's the heart of the film, he confesses to her everything about his relationship with Vellini. After much has been told (and shown on screen) in an amusing moment we see the Marquise reclining low in her seat: she is exhausted, but entranced. She wants to hear every detail. The Marquise is of course, of the older generation--a real Choderlos de Laclos lady. For her, the information that Ryno is a true libertine is proof that he is reliable, not an unknown quantity. And the cards are on the table. He'll do. Rybno has every intention of having done with Vellini, and in a scene we've observed before his confession, he's made love with her one last time and they've said their adieus and adioses. Afrter his marriage, which we don't see, Ryno and Hermangarde live in a castle by the sea--so that he can avoid the temptations of Paris. Velllini waits four months, and then she appears. And once she is in front of Ryno, despite his professions of being fed up with her, he can't resist her. There are several scenes in which Vellini draws blood from Ryno and licks it up: hints or Ms. Argento's father's films? Part of the New York Film Festival 2007. Three years after a stroke, Breillat is clearly in fine form--never better--and this is a long-awaited (by her) labor of love.

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• Beautiful and elegant

  howard.schumann2008-08-10

  Milan Kundera writes: "Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition." Case in point, Ryno de Marigny (Fu'ad Ait Aattou), an impoverished but elegantly handsome young man who is trapped between the aristocratic world to which he aspires, and an obsessive bond with a defiantly independent mistress, the boldly seductive Vellini (Asia Argento), an older but dazzling Spanish woman said to be born of an Italian noblewoman and a bullfighter. Adapted from a 19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, Catherine Breillat's beautiful and elegant The Last Mistress, challenges the patriarchal assumptions of the age by depicting a 36-year old woman's right to fully express her sexual desires even if it is means flaunting society's conventions and Christian misogynist teachings. Set in Paris in 1835, complete with elaborate period costumes and sumptuously decorated drawing rooms, the film opens with the gossip between two aging aristocrats, the Vicomte de Prony (Michael Lonsdale) and his wife, the Countess d'Artelles (Yolande Moreau about the ten-year affair between de Marigny and Vellini and the young man's impending marriage to the wealthy Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida). Hermangarde's grandmother La marquise de Flers, excellently played by the 80-year-old French writer Claude Sarrate, is an open-minded and rational individual who claims to be a woman of the 18th century. Worried that Ryno will not be able to get over his passion for his fiery Spanish mistress, de Flers listens attentively as Ryno relates to her the details of his long relationship, an affair that he says has now come to an end, telling her that "You don't betray a new love with an old mistress". In flashback, Ryno relates how he was overcome by Vellini's wild beauty after they were introduced at a party ten years before. Vellini, then married to a wealthy but dull Englishman, reacts negatively, however, when she overhears Ryno call her an ugly mutt and the young man is forced to vigorously pursue her despite her strong objections, forcing her to kiss him while the two are out riding. Her horrified husband witnesses the act and challenges Ryno to a duel the next morning. After deliberately missing his first shot, Ryno is shot in the chest, a wound from which he will take months to recover. The incident, however, triggers Vellini's awareness of her love for Ryno, exotically announced by her sucking the blood from the gaping hole in his chest. De Flers presses Ryno for the details of their life together during the past ten years but the dramatic story is better left for the viewer to discover. When the film returns to present time, de Marigny and Hermangarde are married and ostensibly in love, yet he struggles to keep his word to her grandmother by moving away from the temptations of Paris to a remote seacoast. The cigar-smoking temptress, however, also loves the fresh sea air and the stage is set for the film's final act. The Last Mistress is an outstanding work of art that is strengthened immeasurably by striking performances by Asia Argento and first-time actor Fu'ad Ait Aattou. Argento fully captures Vellini's sexual assertiveness but tempers her incendiary disposition with naturalism and a tenderness that makes us care about her fate. Aattou, discovered by Breillat in a crowded café, is almost feminine in appearance with overly thick lips and sensitive eyes, yet he brings a masculine determination to the role that makes him completely convincing. Like the recent film by Jacques Rivette, The Duchess of Langeais, in The Last Mistress love becomes a contest of wills, a power struggle between two people whose relationship consists of a tug of war not only between domination and submission but between 18th and 19th century social codes. That Breillat makes the ride so entrancing is a tribute to her enormous talent.

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• You may not see the organs, but they are there

  jaibo2008-09-19

  Catherine Breillat's film of d'Aurevilly's 1851 novel may not contain the explicit hardcore elements of her previous films Romance and À ma sœur! but what it lacks in hardcore sexuality it fully makes up for in emotional honesty and explicit anatomising of a love affair. The complicated structure begins with a pair of old gossips, male (the wonderful Michael Lonsdale) and female, taking it upon themselves to prevent the marriage of the beautiful, young and wealthy Hermangarde to the libertine Ryno de Marigny. It is widely known that Ryno has kept a notorious mistress, the Spanish/Italian Vellini, for the past ten years. A few days before his marriage, Ryno pays a call on Vellini and tells her that he will stop coming to see her. She is clearly distressed, and after copulating for one supposedly final time, he leaves her with a bad feeling between them. Ryno must then explain himself to Hermangarde's elderly grandmother the Marquise de Flers, who demands an explanation for the rumours and aspersions that the gossips have been whispering. Ryno swears that he loves Hermangarde, and then tells the Marquise the story of his and Vellini's affair. There follows a long flashback in which the affair is relayed. We see their initial, intense courting - she hates Ryno at first but after he is nearly killed in a duel by her decrepit husband, she gives herself totally to him. They run off to Algeria, have a daughter who tragically dies, spend a lot of time screwing and then decide that they are no longer in love. Despite separating, they can't keep away from each other, and it is only Ryno's current love for Hermangarde which has finally, in his mind, ended the affair. The Marquise is satisfied, with the marriage going ahead in pomp and ceremony, with various misogynist readings from St. Paul peppering the service. But Vellini is not got away from so easy. She stalks her ex-lover and he soon drifts back into her bed. Hermangarde's heart is broken, Ryno feels bad but there's nothing anyone can do. The gossips feel justified in their initial worries but we've seen the situation being far more complicated that they can ever grasp. The brilliance of The Last Mistress is that it fully convinces in it's portrayal of a love affair which operates beyond the socially acceptable structures of sexual relationships. Ryno and Vellini obviously work together, but not all of the time and not fulfilling all of each other's needs. Ryno did genuinely love Hermangarde and wish to settle down with her - whether that was from himself or imposed on him by social convention is an unanswered question - but nevertheless is he drawn inexorably back to the woman with who he shares an intense though imperfect and illegitimate bond. The story is very carefully placed within the social structure and ideological values of its time - which is why the wedding scene with its long misogynist orations is so important. Vellini, and Ryno as well, are not made for these ideological bounds - and the tension between the avenues society gives them and the desires they have within causes them no end of pain. The characters are fully realised sexual beings. Although we don't see the copulating sexual organs as in Romance, we do understand that these are people with sexual organs and that the use they put to those parts of their body is connected to the very core of their being. The actors, especially the stunningly beautiful lead actor Fu'ad Ait Aattou, all do superb jobs of showing the emotional havoc the story wreaks on them. There's a distance to the filming which allows us to see the story without getting too caught up with it, although the costumes, sets and cinematography all have a seductive beauty. There's also a stylisation going on whereby the actors don't age throughout the narrative, as it they are beautiful beings frozen in the roles they are enacting - timeless and eternally suffering. A ravishing and quite wonderful film.

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• He loves her, he marries another one....

  weintraube2007-10-08

  This is a beautiful period film with a lot of Breillat's trademark unflinching look at love and war between sexes. The story is old, but this is first time I see it put so frankly - they not marrying the the love of their life.... Sex is shot amazingly. There is an eyeful of historical detail and actors are looking great, dressed and undressed. The book it is based on according to Breillat, is autobiographical, which makes it even more interesting. To put it simply - great work in many aspects. Bravo again Catherine!

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