Claire Denis is a very instinctual filmmaker, which is always a risk when it comes to watching her movies. Either you get into the groove she’s created or you don’t.
That’s why Denis has a been a hit and miss director for me all these years. This year, she’s premiered two new films; “Both Sides of the Blade,” and “The Stars at Noon,” both subpar.
In “Both Sides of the Blade” (being released on July 8th), Denis sets her sights on a soapy love triangle. Sara (Juliette Binoche) and Jean (Vincent Lindon) have been in a loving relationship for ten years. From the first time we lay eyes on them kissing at the beach, it’s quite clear they are going strong.
Things get complicated when Francois (Denis regular Grégoire Colin) comes back into their lives. Sara used to be, many years ago, in a passionate relationship with François, who was also Jean’s best friend. One day, Sara sees François on the street and she is overwhelmed by an indescribable sensation.
Before you know it, Sara and Francois start secretly meeting up, Jean somehow spots them embracing each other and this ticking time bomb of a situation explodes. It doesn’t help that François starts working with Jean again, they used to have a successful sports talent agency until Jean went to jail for an undisclosed reason.
The problem with Denis’ film is that her three main protagonists just aren’t that likeable, but especially Sara. Despite Binoche’s best intentions with the role, her character is a self-effacing narcissist, not to mention a pathological liar. She’s not necessarily into the cheating for love, but for her own self-interests. She needs the attention, finding monogamy mundane despite being loved to the moon by Jean.
It’s a story of infidelity that, unlike Denis’ best films, feels familiar. Like most of the Denis oeuvre, she tries to break the mold of storytelling by trying to tell this story in messily non-conformist ways, the issue here is that the plot she tackles here is so plain that Denis’ imagery-led style renders it unnecessarily complicated.
The choppiness of the narrative gets even more bothersome when Denis decides to add a subplot involving Jean’s mixed race son, Marcus, whom he had with another woman now re-married in Martinique, and his mother, also Marcus’ caretaker, Nelly. The misbegotten idea to insert this side story turns out to be more distracting than interesting.
Fact of the matter is that this isn’t one of Denis better efforts. When you don’t buy the central couple of a story, and the chemistry between the actors lacks spark, then the whole movie gets screwed over. Denis’ instinctual abilities do end up delivering some strongly cinematic scenes, but when there’s no empathy for the characters then what’s the point? [C+]