Coeurs
The Age
Thursday July 31, 2008
Coeurs
Madman, 120 min, M, drama, 20074/5Alain Resnais' Coeurs, an adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn's play Private Fears in Public Places, is shot on a soundstage and set in a wintry Paris that looks as artificial and bright as a snow dome. Resnais has already filmed an Ayckbourn piece, Intimate Exchanges, which is known as Smoking/No Smoking but this time he relocates the play across the channel. His characters - apart from an elderly man who is seen but not heard - are constantly in search of something, whether it's a new flat or a new relationship, or something that they can't even quite define. Their paths keep crossing, misunderstandings multiply and alliances are established or put under pressure as Resnais moves us gracefully from one encounter to the next, from one crossed wire or misapprehension to another. Its theatrical origins are clear: Coeurs is a work about space and place. It could appear slight in its carefully calibrated combination of warmth and chill, its formal grace and apparent simplicity, its exploration of confined locations and confined lives but its transparency and ease are misleading. It's a film full of yearning, and while assured and controlled, leaves a sense of unresolved mystery.DVD extras include: trailer; behind-the-scenes; featurette.
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