Claire Denis: Of Decadence, Dancing, and Decline

Editor’s Notes: The following article is part of our coverage for TIFF’s Objects of Desire: The Cinema of Claire Denis which runs from October 11th to November 10th at TIFF Bell Lightbox. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.

During a classroom debate in one of French filmmaker Claire Denis’s finer films, 35 Shots of Rum, the main character addresses that “debt can be discussed without getting full of emotion, but precisely, rigorously, and technically.” You feel that sensibility, especially visually, throughout Denis’s vast selection of films, all of which will be showcased at the TIFF Bell Lightbox from October 11 until November 10, 2013 for Denis’s Objects of Desire retrospective.

Aptly, Denis’s pictures are often fixated on desire (aesthetically exoticized but not to an English Patient-extent of steamy), yet they maintain an austerity that keeps her formal images controlled, bold and magnificent.

Aptly, Denis’s pictures are often fixated on desire (aesthetically exoticized but not to an English Patient-extent of steamy), yet they maintain an austerity that keeps her formal images controlled, bold and magnificent.

That’s what one may notice in Denis’s pictures: everything – from the glowing West African land in her directorial debut Chocolat (1988) to her grim, overtly cryptic new urban family drama Bastards (2013) – is beautiful. Attuned to textures and compositions, Denis personifies feeling through the natural world, communicating both melancholy and joy simply through a bright, sunbaked shot of a lonely savanna or the clay-colored apartments of 35 Shots of Rum.

Denis’s films, like any important filmmaker, are distinguished through her personal style and vision, which in turn comment on worldly patterns. Paraphrasing Truffaut’s auteur-oriented statement, a director always makes the same movie; you get that sense, even in Denis’s 2001 vampire horror film Trouble Every Day, that she continues to echo her sensibilities about sexual repression (Beau Travail), the exotic (White Material), racial tension (Chocolat), and the black diaspora in France (35 Shots of Rum) across every new, unfolding frame.

Yet most, if not all, of these elements can be found in her films if you watch and listen closely. For Denis’s craft relies heavily on the evocation of sight and sound. She uses the latter particularly to tap into memory sensation to enhance the past-to-present narratives which oscillate from colonialist to post-colonialist West Africa (where Denis grew up). She visualizes contrasts in society and consciousness infusing her works with the qualities of reflection and understanding.

While beautifully crafted, the cinema of Claire Denis is not burgeoning with narrative clarity. Her stories are driven by looks, expressions, and inscrutable actions that challenge viewers to interpolate and often extrapolate the events. Drawn to narrative ellipses, Denis does not fluidly dramatize social or political tensions, but instead strips way content and “climactic” moments to make us consider what else of the story is left to be told and what emotions have been hidden or neglected (you may get Kelly Reichardt vibes).

While Denis isn’t a cynical filmmaker, she obsesses over decline and loss in her works. As Francois Cluzet’s character commented about North Cameroon colonialism in Chocolat: “this can’t last much longer”, and you notice in Denis’s films that the current state of her characters is in transition about to be superseded by a new order, or personal realization about one’s experiences that will change his or life for a long time.

When her films conclude, you are not exactly meant to feel happy or sad, but to think critically about the world that has just slid off the screen (recall Mati Diop’s line from 35 Shots of Rum: “you’re not here to hope or despair, but to develop critical skills, rhetorical skills, analytical skills. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. Try again.”) From what I’ve seen by Denis, it is apparent that one truly experiences her films after that fade to black. Her films are undeniably slow, slightly one-noted, but that austere, unimposing form dares you to consider the heavy, elliptical, typically family-themed content.

Her movies read like poetry. Scenes seem divided in stanzas, like one descriptive movement dropping off to the next, allowing our curiosity to patiently build and senses arouse.

Her movies read like poetry. Scenes seem divided in stanzas, like one descriptive movement dropping off to the next, allowing our curiosity to patiently build and senses arouse. It’s difficult to appreciate her films as a whole; instead, one may admire sequences like the dance to The Commodores’s Nightshift in 35 Shots of Rum to the devastating car crash in Bastards and the tableau of vistas in Beau Travail. It’s above all, despite any misgivings, mature craftsmanship.

Lastly, observe the performances of Isaach de Bankolé (White Material, No Fear No Die), Denis Lavant (Beau Travail), and Grégoire Colin (The Intruder, 35 Shots of Rum) as three embittered but handsome faces carrying the weight of oppression often infused in Denis’s semi-autobiographical stories. Consider this French filmmaker’s cryptic use of women, particularly the prostitutes in Beau Travail and Lola Créton’s nebulous Lady-Godiva-without-a-horse in Bastards. They add to this director’s firm sense of mystery, and perhaps insistence to frustrate. Be prepared with her films to “try again”.

These are some ideas to possibly consider, and challenge, if you choose to (and I highly recommend you do) attend Objects of Desire. Denis herself will be in attendance on Thursday, October 17 to present a 35 mm restoration of Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki (1973) and Friday, October 18 for a Q&A at a screening for Bastards. This retrospective offers selections that will challenge your critical rationale and traditional expectations of narrative.

For more information on TIFF’s Objects of Desire, including showtimes of the entire list of films, visit https://tiff.net/ filmsandschedules/tiffbelllightbox/2013/2440003972.

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Parker Mott

Staff Film Critic

Parker Mott is a film critic and screenwriter based in Toronto, ON. He writes for Scene Creek, Movie Knight, Film Slate Magazine, The Final Take, and now yours truly Next Projection. He intends to purvey thoughtful writings on film that deeply examine the history of the form, and to initiate mindful discussion afterwards. His favourite and most relatable filmmaker is Paul Thomas Anderson. But to declare a best movie? No way, or not at this moment in his life.

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• Claire Denis: Of Decadence, Dancing, and Decline - October 14, 2013