Diary of a Fleeting Affair

"That said, it is Macaigne who hijacks the narrative in mid stream and profusely piques audience's curiosity and investment. His Simon is a cross section of today's mythopoetic man, rational, sensitive, bristling with cute foibles that can harm no one but embarrass himself, and Macaigne is a ball of neurosis, a windbag without pretension, hopelessly self-conscious of his gaucheness, yet he soldiers on with heartfelt effusions about true feelings and confusions. At the end of the day, the story returns to where it starts, like a full circle. During another chance meeting, Simon nerves himself up to ask Charlotte to be his lover again, plus ça change, but one must hand it to him for his temerity and perseverance, even Charlotte seems impressed. Mouret's open-handed ending gladsomely suggests it might not be the last time they see each other." -

Unbelievably it is a movie shot according to a diary with different times and dates recorded and also shown on the screenplay. The movie exists of solely dialogues between the two lovers in changing settings and scenes. Each scene is not long, so in the end it is an accumulation of different places and circumstances the viewer will become a witness of. However the settings and scenes are nice and beautiful, the two main actors are fitting them in a puristic way. Except from the dialogues nothing much more is happening and those longlasting and non-stopping dialogues become monotone, might also be the voice of the translators as I have seen the movie in German. The emotions and feelings merely got expressed strongly, so the viewer can feel acquainted to the actors. The content of the dialogues are in detail and both express their thoughts and wishes bluntly and without much emotional expression, neither through their faces or gesture. So the movie could also be a podcast to be heard by the audience, the result would nearly be the same.

'Chronique d'une liaison passagère' (2022 - distributed on the English-language market under the title 'Diary of a Fleeting Affair') gave me the opportunity to re-encounter the films of Emmanuel Mouret (I liked a lot 'Lady J.') and to discover an extremely talented French actor whom I had not noticed before Vincent Macaigne. Mouret has made one of those films that I like: with a script (of which the director is a co-author) that starts from a real life story told with sincerity, based on actors who create roles that they feel and understand, shoot with minimal means but with aesthetics and expressiveness. As the title says (Emmanuel Mouret likes titles that are as explicit as possible), the film is about a temporary relationship that was not meant to last. Charlotte is a little over 50, Simon is a little under 50. She has been divorced for several years, he is married. He works as a prenatal therapist, we don't know if she is employed and if so, what profession she has. The two meet at a party where the initiative belongs to her ('I had seen two men, one danced with another woman the whole time, the second was you') but he gets caught up in the game, after the party they go for a drink in a bar, then they kiss for the first time. Two weeks later they meet again and the relationship begins. They both seem to have plenty of time at hand, the meetings are becoming more and more frequent. They aim for their relationship to be no-strings-attached and so it stays for a while, with long meetings, some sex, and lots of talking. But is such a connection between a man and a woman, without feelings arising, possible? How long can it last? If there is a category of 'family drama' films, then 'Chronique d'une liaison passagère' would fall under the category of 'non-family drama'. The model is Bergman's 'Scenes from a Marriage', explicitly quoted in a film-in-film scene, but everything seems to mirror the premise of Bergman's married couple story. Charlotte has three children, Simon has two children, all of whom are in their teenage years or shortly after, but their fate and the impact of their bond on the children's feelings does not concern them for a second. We knew absolutely nothing about Simon's family. At one point Charlotte wants to see a photo of Simon's wife but quickly gives up on the idea. We only know that he can spend many hours, sometimes missing whole days or nights from home without his wife or children suspecting anything (!). The two build a seemingly perfect wall between their bond and the rest of the world. The threat to their no-strings-attached couple life only comes when they experiment with a 'threesome'. The younger Louise also comes from a marriage that is falling apart, and it is this connection started from an ad on an Internet site that will create the obligations that the two were avoiding, but in an unexpected direction. Up until that moment we had practically only Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Macaigne, the exceptional performers of the two main roles, on the screen. Now the couple will become a triangle, but a (again) non-family triangle. Between the woman and the man, Charlotte and Simon, there was always a gap in initiating and in externalizing feelings. By the time the man gathers courage, it is too late. The orbits of Venus and Mars are moving away and who knows if they will ever get closer again.

O-la-la! Only French filmmakers can do that! A film about a perfectly normal extramarital love affair that doesn't just happen in our favorite MegaCity Paris of all time! Sandrine KIBERLAIN and Vincent MACAIGNE play a middle-aged romantic couple who once again nibble on the forbidden fruits of lust. They live out their dreams and needs charmingly and directly, trained in the classics of Eric ROHMER and Woody ALLEN. Until, yes, until the duo makes their big dream of a threesome come true... Charming and funny, tres francais! Such films are not to everyone's taste, but it's nice that they exist!

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