Maddened by His Absence (Sandrine Bonnaire, 2012): France

Reviewed by Jillian P. Halverstadt.  Viewed at the Metro 4 Theatre, Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

If you are looking for a movie that is going to induce some confusion and even a little depression into the rest of your day, then this is the one to see.  Perhaps I only feel this way because I am not a parent and can’t possibly understand the pain the main character, played by William Hurt, Jacques goes through.  Nonetheless, this is not the film to see if you are seeking a happy escape for a few hours.

The screen goes dark and a gloomy piano plays as the opening credits roll and a dream-like voice over of a man and his son laughing together set the tone for this drama to begin.  Bonnaire paints her audience a detailed picture of a severely depressed man whose son was killed in a car accident while he was driving.  Tormented by his own self hatred, Jacques picks up and moves to America leaving his wife and all of the painful memories behind.  Nine years later though, Jacques must return to France for his fathers funeral and finds his guilt is still weighing heavily on him.  He meets his ex-wife Mado (Alexandra Lamy) for lunch only to discover she is doing quite well with her new husband and son, Paul (Jalil Mehenni).  Throughout the rest of the film, Jacques cannot stop his deep grief as it takes him over and projects itself into an unhealthy obsession.

Although the content itself was not something I rather favored, the mise-en-scene showed thoughtfulness and added to the gloomy tone.  The editing by Svetlana Vaynblat included a diverse set of cuts that all flowed well together.  The shot/reverse shot sequence is used multiple times throughout the film showing Mado and Jacques. This gave the audience a focused shot on each of their emotions separately during their conversations.  Cinematographer Philippe Guilbert controlled most of the camera movement and takes in a style that was appropriate for the flow of the plot.  However, the multiple long takes of Jacques lying on the ground in the basement started to become distracting and actually dragged the film out to be much longer then it should’ve been.  If these were to have been cut down to a minimum, I think the audience still would have understood this mans pure insanity and depression without almost falling asleep during the overly repetitive still shots.

The title of this feature, Maddened by His Absence, suits the movie a lot more than I even began to understand going into this screening.  It was a dark piece of art that I would not want to see again nor would I take the bold step of discrediting completely due to my involuntary lack of understanding for the content.  The beauty of the French language was one aspect I could truly admire.