The filmmaker Emmanuel Mouret and the actor Vincent Macaigne open the D’A Film Festival tonight with Chronicle of an Ephemeral Love, a romantic comedy in which the director of that ensemble story about the passions of love entitled The things we say, the things we Hacemos, delves back into extramarital affairs with the story of Simon (Macaigne), a married man with children who has an affair with Charlotte (Sandrine Kiberlain), a single mother.
She is uninhibited and can’t stand routine or romantic passion. He is very modest and makes it clear that he is happy with his family. They are both attracted to each other, love to talk, and want to have fun together without promises of commitment. “The two characters share the desire to live something light, he because he has a family and she because she feels that she has already tried the relationship as a couple and wants something different. On the one hand, they try to be faithful to their feelings and at the same time have the commitment to do no harm and to be good people.The character played by Vincent feels comforted by Sandrine’s because she tells him not to worry, that they can have that kind of relationship, a relationship in which there is a conflict between wanting to keep their bond as a desire without falling in love”, comments the director to La Vanguardia.
“I think this film is like a sentimental thriller because the viewer is always caught up in a suspense, they feel involved in some way waiting for the moment when they say something deep and declare their love. It is also based only on two characters, although then we will see that there is a third, and that it has a very physical staging, and, at the same time, it is a declaration of love for ephemeral loves, as the title of the film says, and that it claims a certain depth of lightness. Emmanuelle has been very involved to give it its own rhythm and humor,” adds the actor, nominated for a César for Best Actor for this role.
Simon has a hard time expressing his true feelings to Charlotte and, in the end, it takes its toll on him. At one point he recognizes that he is a slow man and that he needs a push to make important decisions. Is that how you see men in love relationships? “I couldn’t say, but that slowness is tragic because by the time Simon realizes his feelings and wants to express them, it’s already too late. What excites me the most, though, is when she says that just seeing each other is a sexual act. That the act of speaking is something erotic,” says the interpreter.
Mouret, who has grown up surrounded by women, says: “I’ve always had the feeling that women are livelier, faster. And I, as a man, am more shy and reserved.” The relationship between the protagonists develops through time jumps and ellipses. One of the peculiarities of the film is that we never see Simon’s wife. It’s always the two of them until a third party comes along and turns everything upside down.
Director and actor had previously worked together on The Things We Say, The Things We Do. He wrote the script without thinking of anyone in particular, but he saw in Macaigne’s face the perfect man to play Simon. The same thing happened with Sandrine Kiberlain. “They’re both actors who can be emotional and funny at the same time. And that suited the movie very well because it evolves from something lighter to something much more melancholic.”
Known by many as the ‘French Woody Allen’, Mouret pays a clear homage to the Manhattan author in Chronicle of an Ephemeral Love, a work in which Éric Rohmer’s cinema is also very present. “They are two filmmakers that I admire a lot and who are very obsessed with desire, the couple, words and morality. In practice they have invented many things on these topics. Rohmer is a great film theorist both for his films and his writings and Allen found many staging solutions around these themes, especially in his time collaborating with cinematographer Gordon Willis.” And Macaigne, beyond these influences, maintains that “Mouret has been building his own cinematographic grammar and that from film to film he has added a more tragic layer, something that particularly excites me”.
