QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM KARLOVY VARY
Susanne (Juliette Armanet) lives with nine-year-old Gaspard and six-year-old Margo in a medium-sized city somewhere in France. She has no job and no husband, the father of the children having passed away a few years earlier. One day, she shows up announced at her sister’s Jeanne (Camille Cottin) with the children in order to spend the night. The impromptu hostess is caught by surprise. After all, the two siblings have barely been in touch. She can’t even remember when they last met. She welcomes her three relatives nevertheless, unaware that Susanne will have vanished into thin air in the morning, leaving behind a handwritten note asking her to take care of the two unsuspecting little ones.
Jeanne panics. She demands that the police search for her sister, but the fact that Susanne left voluntarily prevents the authorities from intervening, or even investigating the matter. She confesses that she doesn’t like children at all, and questions what would happen if she simply refused to look after her nephew and niece. The answer is genuinely heartbreaking. The French institutions – police, courts and even schools – are wholly unprepared to deal with the fact that a mother may simply disappear.
Portrait artist Nicole (Monia Chokri) – who happens very skilled with the pencil as well as with little human beings – lends some much needed emotional and logistical support. Susanne and Nicole happen to have a relationship that goes beyond friendship. Jeanne, however, remains hostile to any sort of emotional attachment (to the point she will have sex and yet refuse to share breakfast with her partner because she deems that too intimate). Affection is a sentiment alien to this kind and honest human being.
This is a film about a very common and natural however inconvenient and uncomfortable truth: some women have no maternal instincts. It is never clear why Susanne had children (perhaps she wanted to please her late husband), however there is no doubt that she is a very hesitant parent. Jeanne opted not to have children, and even separated a previous partner, due to parenting pressures. This makes her a silent anti-natalist (anti-natalism is the philosophical belief that procreation is either unethical or unjustifiable). Such behaviour might be explained by the fact that their mother died when they were children, and their father neglected both of them. Such attitude is more widespread than most would think. Many people refuse parenthood for various reasons: because they lack the skills, because they don’t have the time, because they don ‘t like children, or even because they think the world is a bad place.
The topic of failed motherhood is an increasingly common one (a few titles can be found here). Two particular titles come to mind: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (2017) and Belgian infanticide drama Our Children (Joachim Lafosse, 2012). Both films focus on a tormented and reluctant mother.
The open discussion around anti-natalism is candid and refreshing (even if such term is never used in the film). This is a delicate and sensible movie, particularly for a 25-year-old filmmaker (the prodigy writer and director is now on his third feature film). The austere aesthetic – with sparse camera movements and mostly natural lighting – fits in well with the simple and straightforward storytelling.
It is mostly script and acting issues prevent the story from reaching its full potential. While the story is very interesting, the script is often contrived, and the two child actors are not on a par with the far more skilled adults. The insistently gloomy sequences are just too demanding for them. The story is also dogged by repetition – one sad event after the other – and a strangely cheesy and dissonant ending.
Out of Love just premiered in the Crystal Globe section of the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. A very mature – if flawed – piece of filmmaking.
