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Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve are French cinematic royalty. While a cynic might argue it’s simply a case of longevity, seeing them in André Téchiné’s Changing Times I was impressed by their ability to disappear into their roles despite possessing such recognizable faces. The film begins with Antoine (Depardieu) arriving in Tangiers to supervise an architectural project, and then, without warning, he’s buried under a mudslide while inspecting the site. Téchiné then takes us back to Antoine’s arrival and we realize that it’s several months before Antoine’s accident.
It’s testament to the film’s ability to impose its reality that we momentarily forget the ending (that comes at the beginning) and become absorbed in the immediacy of the action before us. Antoine’s real reason for coming to Tangiers, we soon find out, isn’t the engineering project he’s overseeing, it’s Cecile (Deneuve), the first and only true love of his life. The fact they haven’t seen each other in 30 years, and that she’s now relatively happily married, the mother of a grown son, and not attracted to him in the least, does not deter him. He goes as far as conducting witchcraft ceremonies in a desperate attempt to recapture her heart, and just when he begins to seem like the biggest romantic schlump of all time, something happens. Cecile, whose face is always hardened in a grimace of maternal concern, and her words, sharpened daggers directed towards her husband, soften.
The backdrop of Tangiers, with its elemental beauty — sparkling, sun-dappled water coexisting with dry parched earth — mirror the deep longing and hardened complacency existing on either side of Cecile. Her marriage to a Moroccan doctor betrays a familiar strain, while her son’s relationship with a troubled Moroccan girl completes the familial portrait of compromise and hypocrisy that contrast Antoine’s singular devotion. Téchiné creates a slow-burning spectacle out of it all and when we return at the end to find Antoine buried past his neck, it all makes perfect sense.
Opens July 14
It’s testament to the film’s ability to impose its reality that we momentarily forget the ending (that comes at the beginning) and become absorbed in the immediacy of the action before us. Antoine’s real reason for coming to Tangiers, we soon find out, isn’t the engineering project he’s overseeing, it’s Cecile (Deneuve), the first and only true love of his life. The fact they haven’t seen each other in 30 years, and that she’s now relatively happily married, the mother of a grown son, and not attracted to him in the least, does not deter him. He goes as far as conducting witchcraft ceremonies in a desperate attempt to recapture her heart, and just when he begins to seem like the biggest romantic schlump of all time, something happens. Cecile, whose face is always hardened in a grimace of maternal concern, and her words, sharpened daggers directed towards her husband, soften.
The backdrop of Tangiers, with its elemental beauty — sparkling, sun-dappled water coexisting with dry parched earth — mirror the deep longing and hardened complacency existing on either side of Cecile. Her marriage to a Moroccan doctor betrays a familiar strain, while her son’s relationship with a troubled Moroccan girl completes the familial portrait of compromise and hypocrisy that contrast Antoine’s singular devotion. Téchiné creates a slow-burning spectacle out of it all and when we return at the end to find Antoine buried past his neck, it all makes perfect sense.
Opens July 14
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