Mélo

Alain Resnais, once the most avant-garde director of the French New Wave, turned his attentions to playing with the conventions of theater through cinema in the 1980s. This 1986 drama, based on a 1929 play by Henri Bernstein, opens with a curtain rising on an intimate dinner with old friends and colleagues Pierre (Pierre Arditi) and Marcel (André Dussollier), both concert violinists, and Pierre’s vivacious young wife Romaine (Resnais’s longtime partner and muse Sabine Azéma). It’s like a filmed stage performance on an artificial set (complete with painted backdrop) and Resnais shoots the initial sequence in long takes with slow camerawork, drawing the audience into the performances. Resnais continues in this manner through subsequent scenes, as Marcel and Romaine begin an affair. The theatrical style both foregrounds the artifice—not just the sets and settings but also the dramatic structure and literary dialogue—while also drawing the viewer in with the intensity of the performances (both Azéma and Arditi won César Awards). Fanny Ardant costars as Romaine’s cousin, who arrives to care for Pierre when he falls ill and Romaine runs off. As the title suggests, this is a grand melodrama that can only end in tragedy, but it plays out as an intimate work focused on the complex relationships between the characters as they struggle with their feelings and loyalties. Extras include a video essay by critic Jonathan Romney, and brief archival interviews with the cast and crew. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)