European Film Award of the Critics 2007 — Prix FIPRESCI

Alain Resnais, "Cœurs" (Private Fears in Public Places)
By Christian Viviani

In Paris, in winter, in the neighborhood of the "Très Grande Bibliothèque", the destinies of six characters meet.

For Alain Resnais, personal expression isn't just the display of his guts on a table. As in a cinema of another time (meaning: the cinema that passes through time), he works on the basis of a script, in this case an adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn, an author whom he admires and whom he wouldn't dream for a moment of betraying. "Cœurs"takes only minor liberties with the source play: thanks to the French filmmaker (and to Jean-Michel Ribes, who adapted the text), one finds once more (or for the first time) the writing — elegant and acidulous, light and serious — of the British playwright. At the same time, the mise en scène, muted as though softened by the constant snow, stamps the filmmaker's signature more deeply than would an ostentatious show based on an original script. A high-angle shot, during an apartment visit, reduces the set to a compartmentalized journey. Resnais has made Ayckbourn's characters his own, just as he made his own Professor Henri Laborit's rats in "Mon oncle d'Amérique", which also tried to go from one compartment to another.

The filmmaker treats the characters the way an affectionate puppeteer would treat his creatures. He contemplates their comings and goings with the benevolence of one who knows that agitation is vain, but who prefers that people find it out for themselves. After "Pas sur la bouche" (Not on the Lips), and its puppet-theater mechanics, "Cœurs" lingers over deeper wounds, even if it has the politeness to let it seem as though they were only small scratches; it proclaims its melancholy without reserve.

Everyone meets without touching. Appointments are missed, and misunderstandings accumulate. A detail at the end means that the merry-go-round of life goes on: Charlotte gives Lionel a cassette. Another series of quid pro quos will begin. Other characters will emerge from their slots to go towards someone else. But the delicate "miniaturism" of the sets and of the mise en scène, which reduce a capital to the dimensions of a game of toy blocks, has already established unequivocally that moving from one place to another will be in vain. Unless that movement, and not the goal it proposes, is life itself.

Christian Viviani
Translated by Chris Fujiwara

"Cœurs" (Private Fears in Public Places).
Cast and credits. France/Italy (2006). 2h 01'. Direction: Alain Resnais. Screenplay: Jean-Michel Ribes, based on the play "Private Fears in Public Places" by Alan Ayckbourn. Photography: Éric Gautier. Sets: Jacques Saulnier, Solange Zeitoun. Costumes: Jackie Budin. Sound: Jean-Marie Blondel. Editing: Hervé de Luze. Production: Bruno Pésery, Valerio De Paolis. Production companies: Soudaine Compagnie, Studio Canal, France 2 Cinéma, SFP Cinéma, BIM. Cast: Pierre Arditi (Lionel), Sabine Azéma (Charlotte), Isabelle Carré (Gaëlle), André Dussollier (Thierry), Laura Morante (Nicole), Lambert Wilson (Dan), the voice of Claude Rich (Arthur).

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