MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON

Ma's View:

This delicate love story unfolds to the tempo of the wistful violin music played by the leading character.  It is told by slow degrees through the glances and the silences of the two main characters.  Vincent Lindon (the swimming coach in Welcome) plays a happily married builder who picks up his son from school one day and then finds himself little by little falling in love with his son's teacher, played by Sandrine Kiberlain.  The chemistry between these two characters is palpable from the start - perhaps because they have been an off screen couple previously!  The plot seems simple enough - the man is caught in a dilemma; he has a son, a sweet, newly pregnant wife and an elderly father who requires his son's assistance for his most basic needs.  The teacher is lonely, far from home, clearly somewhat estranged from family and, as a professional, tries not become involved with the father of a pupil.  It is a tribute to the acting that we the audience feel every bit of their pain and don't know at the end whether we hope he goes with her or stays to fulful his obligations to his family.  This is a typical French movie - no unnecessary dialogue, excellent camera work, wonderfully evocative music and great acting on all fronts subtly engaging the viewer in the lives of these ordinary folk.


My Score:  8/10


Pepe's View:

Another beautifully crafted French movie - the second in two days.  The director Stephane Brize has assembled an incredibly talented cast and asked them to do the impossible - portray  real people in a real dilemma with mimimal dialogue.  No long expository, no corny arguments, and no contrived conversations - just silences filled with the most beautiful score and glances, looks and then a look away, and the smallest flicker of understanding and longing in the eyes.
I found the sexual tension between Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain so real that I felt I could touch it.  Just one example of Sandrine Kiberlain's difficult task can be seen in the scene at the end of the movie when she says to Jean in reply to his question as to whether she cares for her mother "Our family doesn't do that" - one sentence to portray the wish that she did in fact care for her mother, the sadness of her family life as well as her envy of Jean's family.
Similarly Jean's wife (played convincingly by Aure Atika) showed us just by subtle flex of facial muscles her feelings when she realises her husband's attraction to the teacher.  The director resisted the huge confrontation or the overblown big scene so common in the usual romance movies.

I enjoyed that the technique the writer (Stephane Brize and no doubt the novelist before her) used to initially have Jean visit the teacher in her small appartment was to replace her window - in so doing Jean had a window opened in his simple world as he discovered the beauty of music.
A lovely romantic film that is so beautifully written, acted and filmed.

My Score - 8/10