Wild Grass
Review at National Board of Review web site
Original review posted on June 25, 2010
Thomas W. Campbell
Wild Grass, the latest film by 88 year old French legend Alain Resnais, is a triumph of off-beat storytelling – from the opening theft of a neat yellow purse from a woman with a mountain of wild red hair to the sudden and inexplicable conclusion. Resnais has collaborated with many great novelists and playwrights over the years, including Margarette Duras (Last year at Marianbad), Alan Robbe-Grillet (La Guerre es Finis), Jean Gruault (Mon oncle d’Amérique), Jorge Semprún (La guerre est finie) and Alan Ayckbourn (Private Fears in Public Places, Resnais’ most recent film). Wild Grass, which opened the New York Film Festival last fall, is based on the book “The Incident” by Christian Gailly and it is the first of his 13 novels to be adapted into a film. Resnais’ 22nd feature film is more than a curiosity at the end of a great director’s career – the film is energetic, superbly shot and wonderfully acted. The plot mixes mystery, comedy and melodrama genres in a free-spirited manner that calls to mind the work of French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut’s elegant but somber films The Story of Adelle H and The Bride Wore Black.
André Dussollier as Georges, the middle-aged man who finds the lost red billfold that has been separated from the handbag, and Sabine Azéma, who plays Marguerite, the woman who lost the purse, are veterans of film and theater who create their roles with a full range of humanity. Their actions are believable but impossible to understand – each react to the loss and discovery of the purse in ways that are unexpected, unpredictable, and wholly against their best interests. Resnais investigates their lives through the use of a narrator and internal monologues, continually pulling us deeper into their very human indecisiveness. George and Marguerite’s thoughts circle more and more precipitously around the act. His mind works over the problem with obsessive intent. “Which of the two pictures in her wallet does she look like?” he asks. Finally they no longer seem to remember where the attraction to each other came from.
twcampbell 