Conjugal relationship: French style
By K.S. Sivakumaran
At the 14th International Film Festival of Kerala (KIFF) held between December 11 and 18 last year (2009) I witnessed two French films on the first day. One was a Retrospective Film made in 1962 in the heydays of the celebrated French New Wave directed by one of the masters of Classic Cinema, Francois Truffaut. It was called Jules and Jim. And the other was of fairly recent origin (2007) made by one of the first time directors in France, Jean Pascal Hattu. The title of the film was 7 Years.
Let me talk about the second film first in greater detail. 7 Years here refers to the imprisonment of the protagonist for a period of seven years. But, everything is shown in the perspective of the heroine.

 

How I understood the film can be summed up as follows: Love is one thing, and the biological need to merge with each other is something else. One could have sex with a different person even with the knowledge and approval of one of the married couples. This is what was happening between three people in the story.

The characters were the prisoner sentenced to seven years imprisonment, his devoted and loving wife and the jailer. In a way it is a love triangle, but not exactly. But, the story did not have a straightforward linear narrative. It was a little complicated. The woman in fact enjoys a domesticated life though she is capable of finding a job. But, her neighbour wants her little son in the woman’s care when the neighbour herself goes to work. Her husband is a truck driver going places. The child is more affectionate to the woman than to his own mother. The woman is deeply in love with her husband. She demonstrates fetish exercises with her husband’s clothes and perfume. The jump cuts, sharp cutting and meticulous editing take care of. .Even the sounds synchronising with the different shots. All this help to accelerate the phase of the movement of the images.

Boredom strikes both husband and wife separately in their own environment. Sex is a channel for self-satisfaction and sane-sex satisfaction in the men.
The conflict occurs when the jailer makes advances on the woman. The woman considers herself only as a tool to satisfy her bodily needs. But, deep within her mind and soul she is with her own husband.

Relationships such as these in other parts of the world are not uncommon. Therefore, the content of the film is rather outlandish to imagine. But such interpretations are also possible. However, the film is engrossing till the last. How it ends is both obvious and yet inconclusive. The ultimate message is that love has many a splendour.

sivakumaran.ks@gmail.coml