12.05.2004
claire denis' friday night
friday night, a recent film by claire denis, is one of the most stubborn, singular and miraculous things i've seen in quite a while. it is as warm as it is austere, and as thoughtful as it is thoughtless. put simply, it is the story of a one night stand. and as such, it is the deepest and most tender film i've ever seen devoted to the subject. it also surpasses in its complexity any account i've ever heard (or experienced) of such an event.
***out of fairness, i must add here that i am fundamentally not a one-night-stand-type of guy, so take the above sentence with a grain of salt***
the plot can be dealt with rather quickly: a woman is preparing to move in with her lover. she stops packing her belongings to head to her friends' house for a dinner party. while driving through the streets of paris, she finds traffic in complete gridlock due to a transit strike. in the midst of the congestion, she picks up a hitch-hiker. the dinner is eventually canceled, prompting her to check herself and the hitch-hiker into a hotel and have a one night stand.
the rest is, as they say, in the details.
night is the second film i've seen by denis, the first being beau travail, which i often hear referred to as "her masterpiece." i liked beau travail, but found it difficult to become invested in. in both films, part of what is stylistically distinguished about denis is a certain distance from her content. both films put the sensual on at least equal footing with the psychological. travail struck me as, above all else, a "filmmaker's" movie. the emphasis seemed more on style and structure than empathy or emotion. i found it too "formalist" for my taste (though i should probably see it again.) there was great beauty in its panoramic camera work and its orchestrated military spectacles. but it left me feeling chilly, in the end.
similar techniques are at work in night-- the camera drifts from surface to surface, from dark to light. there are long passages where forms only partially emerge-- hair without a face, flesh without a body, etc. and somehow none of the detachment i expected, following travail, ever emerged. this was particularly strange because the film rejects sentimentality almost completely-- this couple is not intended to last, not interested in anything beyond a single night (either consciously or unconsciously), and, most importantly, in no way inclined to "get to know one another." the effect of all of this is neither sordid nor sensational. and to go a step further, there is no trace of longing or melancholy at work either. the ideology of "the relationship" is not lamented for its inability to occur-- it is done away with entirely. and it is done so in a gesture of great lightness.
here it might seem appropriate to describe the film as "carnal" or "animal"-- perhaps even "pornographic." but there is something you might call "homo sapien" about these two specimens... their randiness is too thoughtful to be a regression to the nitty-gritty one might find on the nature channel. for one thing, neither character is necessarily attractive (nor even fetishistic-ally unattractive). they are the sort of normal looking people you rarely find in a movie. if they are superficial, they are not so in the name of fortunate genetics. something else is turning them on.
so here you have an essentially plot-less, amoral, unsentimental film about two ordinary people with no past or future together-- and i'm blabbing on and on about "lightness" and "tenderness." obviously, i must explain...
friday night, as i see it, is fundamentally concerned with "how" people are what they are. how one chooses to move, the gestures one makes, how one "speaks" through one's body. and denis is so sensitive to this that her curiosity leads her somewhere secretly dramatic-- with only marginal context, and virtually no plot-line, the unconscious (perhaps even "natural") expressiveness of her characters takes center stage. when, for example, the hitch-hiker watches the woman burn her lip on a coffee, it is not that she looks particularly ravishing while doing so-- it is not that he takes delight in seeing her hurt herself either. what he is noticing--and what is really sensational about the film in general-- is the way she expresses herself by accident.
and isn't that what is often most painful when you lose someone? the glitchy details of being a person, the way a certain someone does a certain thing. if i am rejected by someone, i can "replace" basic things about that person-- i can find someone with similar looks, similiar tastes/ideas, perhaps even similiar sentiments. but what remains fundamentally irreplaceable is the random and essential "affect" of experiencing that person. the "how" of being an individual... my friend carl becomes furious at the mention of kevin spacey... my friend erin eats a slice of pizza with a knife and a fork... my mom, who possess almost no sense of humor whatsoever, becomes hysterical at the mere evocation of a fart joke...
i must add that i don't think this film is a love song to "individuality" or anything that grand. it is more concerned with style, in a sense. how style goes beyond fashion, beyond intention. how it's embedded deep within a person, clouding one's most basic actions with a specific kind of grace (or a lack thereof). accordingly, the "one night stand" undergoes a beautiful inversion. prudent assumptions go topsy-turvy, and surface becomes substance. it's a beautiful, refreshing sort of thing.
***out of fairness, i must add here that i am fundamentally not a one-night-stand-type of guy, so take the above sentence with a grain of salt***
the plot can be dealt with rather quickly: a woman is preparing to move in with her lover. she stops packing her belongings to head to her friends' house for a dinner party. while driving through the streets of paris, she finds traffic in complete gridlock due to a transit strike. in the midst of the congestion, she picks up a hitch-hiker. the dinner is eventually canceled, prompting her to check herself and the hitch-hiker into a hotel and have a one night stand.
the rest is, as they say, in the details.
night is the second film i've seen by denis, the first being beau travail, which i often hear referred to as "her masterpiece." i liked beau travail, but found it difficult to become invested in. in both films, part of what is stylistically distinguished about denis is a certain distance from her content. both films put the sensual on at least equal footing with the psychological. travail struck me as, above all else, a "filmmaker's" movie. the emphasis seemed more on style and structure than empathy or emotion. i found it too "formalist" for my taste (though i should probably see it again.) there was great beauty in its panoramic camera work and its orchestrated military spectacles. but it left me feeling chilly, in the end.
similar techniques are at work in night-- the camera drifts from surface to surface, from dark to light. there are long passages where forms only partially emerge-- hair without a face, flesh without a body, etc. and somehow none of the detachment i expected, following travail, ever emerged. this was particularly strange because the film rejects sentimentality almost completely-- this couple is not intended to last, not interested in anything beyond a single night (either consciously or unconsciously), and, most importantly, in no way inclined to "get to know one another." the effect of all of this is neither sordid nor sensational. and to go a step further, there is no trace of longing or melancholy at work either. the ideology of "the relationship" is not lamented for its inability to occur-- it is done away with entirely. and it is done so in a gesture of great lightness.
here it might seem appropriate to describe the film as "carnal" or "animal"-- perhaps even "pornographic." but there is something you might call "homo sapien" about these two specimens... their randiness is too thoughtful to be a regression to the nitty-gritty one might find on the nature channel. for one thing, neither character is necessarily attractive (nor even fetishistic-ally unattractive). they are the sort of normal looking people you rarely find in a movie. if they are superficial, they are not so in the name of fortunate genetics. something else is turning them on.
so here you have an essentially plot-less, amoral, unsentimental film about two ordinary people with no past or future together-- and i'm blabbing on and on about "lightness" and "tenderness." obviously, i must explain...
friday night, as i see it, is fundamentally concerned with "how" people are what they are. how one chooses to move, the gestures one makes, how one "speaks" through one's body. and denis is so sensitive to this that her curiosity leads her somewhere secretly dramatic-- with only marginal context, and virtually no plot-line, the unconscious (perhaps even "natural") expressiveness of her characters takes center stage. when, for example, the hitch-hiker watches the woman burn her lip on a coffee, it is not that she looks particularly ravishing while doing so-- it is not that he takes delight in seeing her hurt herself either. what he is noticing--and what is really sensational about the film in general-- is the way she expresses herself by accident.
and isn't that what is often most painful when you lose someone? the glitchy details of being a person, the way a certain someone does a certain thing. if i am rejected by someone, i can "replace" basic things about that person-- i can find someone with similar looks, similiar tastes/ideas, perhaps even similiar sentiments. but what remains fundamentally irreplaceable is the random and essential "affect" of experiencing that person. the "how" of being an individual... my friend carl becomes furious at the mention of kevin spacey... my friend erin eats a slice of pizza with a knife and a fork... my mom, who possess almost no sense of humor whatsoever, becomes hysterical at the mere evocation of a fart joke...
i must add that i don't think this film is a love song to "individuality" or anything that grand. it is more concerned with style, in a sense. how style goes beyond fashion, beyond intention. how it's embedded deep within a person, clouding one's most basic actions with a specific kind of grace (or a lack thereof). accordingly, the "one night stand" undergoes a beautiful inversion. prudent assumptions go topsy-turvy, and surface becomes substance. it's a beautiful, refreshing sort of thing.
