Justine Lacroix and Bouli Lanners in “Real Love.” credit: unifrance.org
Very few filmmakers are able to use the trappings of normal lives, in normal circumstances, and use that context, in a single film, to communicate profound truths about not only their own characters and narrative ideas, but our own lives and experiences in relation to theirs. It’s a Chekhovian aspiration that few filmmakers nail – a few hit it early and then have trouble following it up, but I hope the talented Claire Burger can use her work here as a springboard for more of the same deeply satisfying work ahead.
Her film Real Love (C’est Ça L’Amour) (France, 2019) concerns the day-to-day adjustments of French social worker Mario Messina (superb character-actor veteran Bouli Lanners), whose wife, Armelle (Cécile Rémy-Boutang) is striking out on her own after twenty years of marriage, and leaving her two teenaged daughters in Mario’s care. Niki, the elder (Sarah Henochsberg) isn’t happy, but still manages to navigate the changes while leading her late-teens life. But the younger, Frida (Justine Lacroix) is having a tougher time. She resents her parents’ separation, and acts out – Niki runs some interference on Dad’s behalf, but Frida has issues that she won’t trust Mario to meet her on in good faith. Mom is trying to forge ahead with her new life while staying available for the girls. Mario has joined up with a performance workshop at the theater Armelle works at – Armelle is torn between resenting what might be his needy intrusion or being impressed by his willingness to stretch and challenge himself uncharacteristically.
Claire Burger was raised in the town she places the film in – Forbach (pop. 21,000), in the northeast corner of France on Germany’s border – and has a rich sense of both the pride, and sharp edges, of everyday small-town working-class family life. She started as a TV reporter, moved into animation production and took herself to film school. She then collaborated on four short films before her first collaborative feature, 2014’s Party Girl (with Marie Amachoukeli and Samuel Theis), which won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes that year. Real Love is her first solo work, and it’s flat-out brilliant. Go.
Valerie Pachner and Pia Hierzegger in “The Ground Beneath My Feet.” credit: karanliksinema.com
The specific price paid by smart, ambitious women in the corporate world is a frequent subject in film, but Marie Kreutzer’s The Ground Beneath My Feet (Der Boden Unter Den Füßen) (Austria, 2019) distinguishes itself with some additional narrative sophistication. Lola (Valerie Pachner) is a highly-paid, high-powered consultant who, with her team, advises troubled companies on major change. It’s stressful work that can affect other people’s working lives profoundly – then it’s on to the next challenge, often in an entirely different city. Dressed to the nines, putting in 48-hour shifts and working out religiously, she’s the model for that extra level of overachievement required to hold her own in that predominantly patriarchal world.
Unbeknownst to her colleagues, however, is a sister, Conny (Pia Hierzegger), a paranoid schizophrenic for whom Lola is the guardian. A great deal of Lola’s resources divert to her sister, but Lola insists on keeping Conny’s existence a secret from everyone, even her lover and colleague Elise (Mavie Hörbiger). Conny’s been institutionalized, again, after a suicide attempt, and is difficult and paranoid. Lola flies almost constantly between Vienna and Rostock, Germany, tending to Conny, her apartment and her treatments, but her Rostock consulting work is crucial as well. As the stress slowly takes its toll, Lola’s sense of propriety and control starts to noir-ishly veer closer to Conny’s lack thereof.
Leena Koppe has been Kreutzer’s cinematographer of choice, and she delivers here as well. All of the environments here are cold, corporate and institutional, from offices and conference rooms to hotel rooms and airports and the hospital, but Koppe and Kreutzer always use the very human Lola, and her circumstances, as the most important visual element in practically every single shot of the film. Stylistically and compositionally, she’s the catalyst. And actor Valerie Pachner (recently seen in Terence Malick’s A Hidden Life) is up to the task – she and Hierzegger (last seen here in Josef Hader’s 2018 Wilde Maus) are both superb, but Pachner clearly carries the film. Highly recommended.
Periscope In The Bathtub 