Maurice Pialat, who died in 2003, may not be as well known internationally as some other 20th-century French directors, but his realistic, often brutally harsh films have many admirers. His 1972 second film is strongly autobiographical, serving up a pitiless, sometimes positively savage account of the break-up of a six-year affair between small-time filmmaker Jean (Jean Yanne) and Catherine (Marlène Jobert), a much younger woman from a working-class family. In portraying the dissolution of their relationship, Pialat characteristically slights conventional narrative form, ignoring transitions and even chronology as he presents largely self-contained sequences of fights, happy interludes, and separations, interspersed with scenes of Jean's continuing relationship with his wife, Françoise (Macha Méril), and periodic visits with Catherine's concerned parents. Pialat's style is anything but flashy: most of the scenes play out before a stationary camera. What emerges most of all, however—mainly through Yanne's smug, brittle performance—is a sense of the director's self-loathing attitude towards the man he was. DVD extras include an interview with Jobert, and an essay by film critic Nick Pinkerton. Not an easy film to watch, but one that is potent, this is recommended. (F. Swietek)
We Won't Grow Old Together
Kino Lorber, 106 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $29.95, Blu-ray: $34.95 Volume 30, Issue 1
We Won't Grow Old Together
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