Leaving (2009)

Dazzled by her performance in the ultra-stylish Thriller Love Crime,I decided to keep a look out for other films starring Kristin Scott Thomas (KST!) Taking a look at BBC iPlayer,I was thrilled to spot a Thomas film about to be taken from the site,which led to me leaving for a viewing.The plot:Despite having the "perfect" bourgeois lifestyle, Suzanne finds herself to be emotionally unfulfilled. Getting her husband Samuel to put a room in his office, Suzanne begins showing round for a builder. Crossing paths with former prisoner Ivan,Suzanne is taken by his rugged looks and begins to have an affair with Ivan. Pushed to confess the affair to Samuel,Suzanne finds herself having to decide if she wants to stay with Ivan or stay with her bourgeois lifestyle.View on the film:Presenting a stripped-down affair,co-writer/(along with Gaëlle Macé/Antoine Jaccoud & Emmanuelle Bernheim) director Catherine Corsini and cinematographer Agnès Godard stab the violent passion Suzanne and Ivan have for each other with razor-sharp editing giving the sex scenes a heated atmosphere. Placing Suzanne's against an unfulfilled backdrop, Corsini completely drains the film of colour,with the washed out, bleached appearance reflecting Suzanne's feelings.Despite the "rich housewife falls for builder" sounding like the outline of an "Adult" movie,the screenplay by Corsini/Macé/Jaccoud and Bernheim break the hollow bourgeois with an earthy Drama of Suzanne and Ivan try in desperation to hold onto their blue-collar threads,as Samuel turns the screws on Suzanne for rejecting the bourgeois lifestyle. Joined by a humble Sergi López as Ivan and a greasy Samuel, Kristin Scott Thomas gives an impeccable performance as Suzanne,by Thomas getting under the brittle nails on Suzanne discovering what matters to her when her bourgeois gifts leave.

Making movies about affairs is a tricky business. While they may be a matter of life and death to those involved they are spectacularly boring to the outside observer. They make no sense, defy all logic and seem the ultimate in selfishness, self-delusion and self-destruction. We acknowledge they exist but they are not a pretty sight. For these reasons it is difficult for an audience to become involved with the protagonists of the affair. You observe them in all their madness rather than root for them, more a technical exercise than an emotional one. So it is with this movie, it is done as well as it possibly could be but for all that we look at the events unfolding as they surely must into disaster, watch the credits roll, and walk away from it as if we had just watched a documentary. It might help if we actually knew and cared about one or both of the protagonists before it all started. It might help even more if one or both of them were likable. Kristen Scott Thomas may be a good actress but she does not "do" warm, or perhaps she has just not landed roles that show this side of here. Whatever the reason she is not a likable person here, which may well be what was intended. Although the guy is very much the secondary character in the portrayal of the relationship he does at least bring a modicum of humanity and warmth to his role. He seems to have unwittingly awakened a monster in his mate that he is doing his best to control, and he seems like a nice, uncomplicated sort of guy. He is in over his head trying to control KST and it's hard not to sympathize with him a little. The endorsement on the cover of the DVD says it is a "magnificent love story". We see these two rutting and heaving and panting but the effect is not beautiful, or sexy or passionate, quite the contrary, all you want to do is look away in embarrassment. While we might understand on a technical level that there is some sort of love involved it is something we can't understand and can't get share in so ultimately all we see is a lot of lust. It is anything but "magnificent", it has little or nothing to do with "love" and I'm not even sure it is a "story" - it is just what inevitably happens in this particular situation. OK, the shooting is a little unusual but that is so tacked on, illogical and irrelevant it is hard to know what to make of it. Aside from that, unlike other reviewers I have no problem with the "authenticity" of the situation, let's face it, love of this nature is a form of temporary insanity, and to try and analyze it terms of logic is a futile exercise.So...in summary, a serviceable, well produced depiction of what amounts to a cautionary tale involving characters that aren't particularly likable. You will probably watch to the end, you will probably not hate it, but you may not be a better, wiser or more entertained person because of it.

Partir (Leaving) is a very powerful and wonderfully crafted French film. I found it immediately interesting that within the first few minutes of the film we are thrown into a web of suspense as a rifle is shot in the middle of the night. I was enthralled by the immediate tension that was created and was on the edge of my seat for the remainder of the movie. I have always enjoyed movies that begin with the ending, which is why I found this movie to be so exciting. The film is directed by Catherine Corsini. Corsini is a French film director and screenwriter, directing 15 films since 1982. A particular film that she directed, La répétition, was entered in the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. One idea in the film that I found intriguing was the lengths a person will go to for happiness or love. A great example of this was at the end of the film when Suzanne shoots her husband with the rifle and flees from their home to be with her lover, Ivan. Suzanne is willing to give up her children and her life by murdering her husband rather than spend another minute with him. All she seems concerned about is being with Ivan and living her life happily by his side, sacrificing everything along the way. A second idea that I found captivating was the dynamics of marriage and responsibilities to the family. Suzanne seems to give up most of her responsibilities when she begins having her affair with Ivan. A prime example of this is when Suzanne and her husband's extended family come for dinner and she steps outside to answer a call from Ivan. Her husband ends up catching her talking to him and locks her in their bedroom for the remainder of dinner. This represents how little consideration she had for spending time with her family and how much more her affair with Ivan meant to her. A "movie buff" comment I would like to make is the power of music, or lack thereof, in this film. An example of this is during the intimate scenes between Suzanne and Ivan. There is no music played during these scenes which I feel brings more intimacy to the moment. A second "movie buff" topic is the use of landscape to convey beauty in the film. An example of this is when Suzanne and Ivan are exploring their potential new home in the beautiful green mountains. In comparison, when we see Suzanne with her husband they always seem to be in places very plain and devoid of beauty. We see how in love Suzanne and Ivan are throughout the film, which I find portrayed through the beauty of the landscape. In contrast, we see how plain and loveless Suzanne's marriage to her husband is through the lack of color and vibrancy in their home.

"Partir," shown in the U.S. as "Leaving" (2009) was co-written and directed by Catherine Corsini. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Suzanne, a French wife and mother who is bored with her "perfect" life. She is rich, beautiful, and seemingly happily married.However, she decides to do something more than just be idle, so she returns to her earlier profession of physical therapy. Her husband is paying for an office for his wife, which will be adjacent to their home. Although wealthy, he squeezes every Euro out of the building contractor. That causes the contractor to hire a Spanish worker, who will work for non-union wages. Suzanne falls passionately in love with the worker--Ivan--and what happens next makes up the plot of the movie.As someone pointed out on the message board, no one behaves intelligently. When she is desperate for money, Suzanne--despite her education and her elegance and beauty--ends up doing manual labor at the lowest level. (Literally--she's picking vegetables.) Didn't she consider working in a dress shop or as a receptionist if she couldn't find a PT position?Kristin Scott Thomas is English, but she lives in France. She's very convincing as a woman who arrived in France when she was very young, and now is completely French. The movie manages to work because Scott Thomas has so much star power and such a strong screen presence. However, beauty and elegance can only take a movie so far. If you analyze the film carefully, the whole thing falls apart.I saw the movie on DVD, and that worked well for the interpersonal aspects. However, there were several scenes of great natural beauty, which were lost on the small screen. I don't think that Partir is a movie worth seeking out, except if you are dazzled by Kristin Scott Thomas, who is in virtually every scene. However, I think it's somewhat better than the very low IMDb rating would suggest.