Les Regrets (Regrets)

Director Cédric Kahn, faces infidelity in his own way, in this romantic thriller Les Regrets, presented at the French Film Festival 2010.

Mathieu Lievin (Yvan Attal) is a 40-year-old architect living in Paris. He is a married man and is working together with his comitted wife at their small architecture firm. When he is notified that his mother has been hospitalised, seriously ill and in a coma, he makes a hasty return to the provincial town in the south of France to be by her side, alone. Facing the difficulties with his mother’s condition by himself, he by chance reencounters with Maya (Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi), his childhood sweetheart whom he hasn’t seen for 15 years. Maya is with her daughter and a man, at their first sighting in the street. Surprised by seeing one another again after such a a long time, they don’t speak at this first reencounter. Mathieu makes his way to his mother’s home (which is where he spent his childhood) and begins to organize for his brother’s arrival, who is coming from overseas, and coming to see their mother one last time. That evening, the telephone rings and it is Maya calling. She invites Mathieu over, and after some hesitation he desides to accept her offer and meets with her at her house. This is the beginning of a complicated, irrational and destructive love affair.

Soon after returning to Paris, Mathieu remains in contact with Maya by phone. He travels back to his home town and meets with Maya again. Mathieu becomes more and more detached and distant from his wife and the life they share; she struggles with their business and to understand her husband’s sudden change of character. Seeing Maya over and over again evolves their relationship, but drives him further away from reality.

Les Regrets is not a traditional love story, it is not a gloryfying love production. It is an exploration of obsession and desires between two individuals as well as the desire of finding answers. It is a movie that makes you feel and makes you participate in the emotions in either way. Les Regrets does not romanticise nor does it hide feelings of desires, pain and desperation. These are shown in their naked truth of emotional expression. The storyline is a bit average, but what makes the movie worth watching is the combination of performance, cinematography and the music that all together create and build this interesting movie. What is hard to picture though, is the unbearable desire Mathieu has for Maya, whose character is rather plain and uninteresting. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi´s performance is at times good, but her role is not very interesting or attractive. It is hard to understand what there is in his desire for her that makes him go completely irrational and slighly out of his mind. Most of the time Yvan Attal´s performance is excellent, and it is his performance which dominates in this. The story does tend to be a little overexaggerated at times, but as mentioned before... the combination of performances allow the viewer to follow it from the start to the very end.

Cédric Khan is an excellent filmmaker. He started out his career as an assistant editor, and then graduated to his own main film debut as a director in (1992), with the small-town drama Bar des rails. Already in his early productions he was recognised for his unusual, eccentric structure and in-depth photography. Cédric Kahn´s earlier known productions consist of the movies Lénnui (1998) from the Alberto Moravia novel Boredom, Feux Rouges (2004), from the Georges Simenon novel, and the true story of a serial killer directed by Kahn in the movie Roberto Succo (2001), which was presented at the Cannes Film Festival (2001).

Yvan Attal (born 4 January 1965) playing the role of Mathieu is a French actor and director who grew up in suburbian Paris. His acting debut was in Un monde sans pitié (1989), for which he was awarded the César Award for Most Promising Actor. He acted in the movie The Intepreter, and Anthony Zimmer. He was also in Rush Hour 3 as the taxi driver George. He has been the dubbed voice for Tom Cruise in the French versions of the movies: Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Mission: Impossible II (2000) and Vanilla sky (2001). Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (born 16 November 1964) who plays the role of Maya is an Italian-French actress and director born in Turin. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi has acted in several internationally acclaimed films, such as If I were a rich man (2002), Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (2004), Time to Leave (2005), Munich (2005) and Good Year (2006). She has won awards as a director for her debut film Il est plus facile pour un chameau in Tribeca Film Festival (2003) and Ankara Flying Boom Women’s Film Festival (2004). She also won the Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes film festival in (2007) for her directing of Actrices.

The cinematography by Celine Bozon in Les Regrets is vivid and the feeling of the environment is distinctly translated through the film. The movie takes the viewer on a pictorial and emotional journey from one moment to another. There is an expectation built up from one scene to the next in this brilliant performance of filmmaking and acting.

Composer and Pianist Philip Glass has made it so that the soundtrack highlights feelings, and enhances the emotions played and performed by the lead characters. Glass is a minimalist and refers to his compositions as ’music with repetitive structures’. Glass has created operas, symphonies, film scores, concertos and music for piano solos. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and won a Golden Globe Award for his work on The Truman show. Glass’ music in "Les Regrets" is very capturing and enhances the emotional experience in the film.

Les Regrets (Regrets): The Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2010
By Ulrika Wickes

The Alliance Francaise French Film festival 2010 is being presented Australia wide. The Festival is in its 21st year and has over the years evolved and grown; last year more than 80,000 spectactors attended screenings of films featured by the French Festival. This year 43 films are presented in many different categories.