| A vendre
Laetitia Masson France
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| Laetitia Masson's debut feature, En avoir (ou pas), was highly garlanded
on its release in 1995, picking up a handful of festival prizes. Masson's
lead actress, Sandrine Kiberlain, went on to win a Cesar for her performance.
Kiberlain again takes the lead in A vendre, Masson's second feature.
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She plays France Robert, a young woman who disappears on the eve of her marriage, taking her husband-to-be's suitcase with her. The case is full – not with dresses but with banknotes, about 500,000 francs' worth. Hit where it hurts (in the wallet), the husband hires an investigator, Luigi Primo (Sergio Castellito) to track her down. Primo's hunt for the runaway takes him on a journey across France and, eventually, as far afield as New York. The narrative and theme of A vendre is the investigation and 'identification of a woman,' as Antonioni, who made a film of that title, might have put it. But it's more besides. "The portrait of a woman through a man's eyes," is how Masson describes it, "and the portrait of a man who finds himself while looking for the woman." She sums up the two principal characters, Luigi and France, thus: "he has renounced all dealings with the world, whereas she thinks that everything has its price. Each comes to understand, thanks to the other, that something else exists beyond commerce and solitude, beyond fear and betrayal." Masson's first film was an exemplary piece of young French intimiste film-making, set in Northern France and made with a small cast. A Vendre ups the stakes by extending both the range of locations and by drawing a much wider portrait of contemporary French society. The cast includes Roschdy Zem, who also featured in Masson's debut. But it's Kiberlain who is clearly the focus of Masson's fascination. Chris Darke |
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