La captive

Plot synopsis:
Simon (Stanislas Merhar) lives in an apartment with his grandmother and his girlfriend Ariane (Sylvie Testud). He follows Ariane on a daily basis testing her to see where she is going, what she is doing and whether she is lying to him about what she does. Ariane submits to his controlling ways including letting him have sex with her while she is feigning sleep, the only way he seems capable of having intercourse. However Simon begins to grow jealous of Ariane's friends and suspects that she is having an affair with another woman. Unable to let go of his jealousy he asks her to move out of his apartment.
Ariane agrees to leave Simon and he drives her to her aunt's house where she plans to move. During the drive they discuss what they consider love to be. Simon confesses that he doesn't believe love is possible without knowing everything about the other person while Ariane disagrees and admits she likes having thoughts and feelings that Simon is unable to access. When they arrive at Ariane's aunt's home Simon finds himself unable to leave her there and begs her to come back. Ariane agrees. On the way home they stop at a seaside hotel but while Simon orders food for Ariane she disappears and he is left alone in the hotel. Believing that she has committed suicide by drowning he dives into the water to try to find her. Simon is rescued by a boat and brought back to shore without Ariane.

Tags: psychedelic, home movie

Review:
A quiet, intense, low key look at the dysfunctional relationship between a very rich young man and the young woman he 'keeps' at his house.
Not much happens in terms of events, the film is mostly in the details, but those details are great.
One of the most interesting and effective 'cold' looks I've seen in a film.
A film for those interested in complexity of character, a director using image and mood to tell a story, and patience to allow the slow accumulation of details to add up over time to something very special..
Having recently discovered French actress Sylvie Testud when I saw The Chateau, I was interested in this film because she's in it.
I haven't read the story that the film is supposedly based on so I had nothing to compare it to when I saw it and therefore I went in without any preconceived notions.
And with a film like this, a film that doesn't operate on any conventional filmmaking level, that is a very good thing.
This movie doesn't try to tell you what to think or feel about its characters; there is none of the contrivances so common in American movies, none of the manipulation.
It just simply presents them and follows them and allows them to do what they do without the camera cutting away too soon for fear that the audience will get bored when there's not a lot "going on" in a scene - in fact some of the best scenes in the film have hardly any movement at all.
And this is not done in a self-conscious, 'arty' let's-create-mood sort of way, which makes watching it - or rather experiencing it - even more hypnotic.This is a film that must be experienced more than once, I would say: you're not really sure what's transpired OR how you feel about what you've witnessed upon a first viewing because it doesn't hit all the 'buttons' that a commercial film is compelled to hit.
You have to read Proust to appreciate this movie.
I imagine it was the most awful, boring treachery to subject someone to if they hadn't read La Captive.
Ackerman is actually quite witty in portraying the mental restlessness of the characters, especially Ariane/Albertine constantly being caught in her poorly planned deceptions).
An example being the bathing scene, where Simon/Marcel is most vulnerable and unselfishly sensual (I say unselfishly because of the contrast of the other sensual scenes where Ariane is sleeping) but this is only possible for him because of the distance and physical barrier between them.
Ackerman is not entirely successful at putting Proust's La Captive on film, but she does make a beautiful, simplified attempt..
Because of its complex and introspective nature, the works of the great French novelist Marcel Proust have been difficult to translate to the screen in spite of some very fine attempts by Raul Ruiz and others.
Inspired by the fifth of seven volumes of Proust's epic novel In Search of Lost Time, the film captures the obsessive quality of the relationship between Simon (Stanislaus Merhar) and Ariane (Sylvie Testud) (Marcel and Albertine in the novel), but is unable to project onto the screen the novel's exquisite prose, psychological subtlety, or depth of feeling.
While Simon is given a thoughtful treatment, he comes across more as strange and unpleasant than the deeply sensitive, poetic young man of the book.La Captive begins at home with Simon viewing films of Ariane and some friends during their summer together in Normandy.
Repeatedly viewing the footage, he carefully utters the words "I really like you," but it is unclear if the sentiment is his, or if he is vocalizing what he imagines to be the thoughts of his mistress.
Simon is a somber, well-to-do young man who lives in an ornate Paris apartment with his grandmother (Francoise Bertin), housekeeper Francoise (Liliane Rovére), and girlfriend Ariane (Sylvie Testud).Though they claim to love each other, each keeps their distance.
Ariane lives in an adjacent room and only comes to see Simon when he sends for her in an ongoing ritual.
Dialogue is sparse and mostly consists of Simon asking Ariane questions that elicit noncommittal responses such as "if you like," "I can't say," or "you think so?" Mimicking Bressonian models, the actor's facial expressions range from enigmatic to blank, and, aside from some perfunctory kissing, the only time that passion shows up is when Simon rubs up against Ariane's body while she is asleep (or pretending to be).
When Simon demands to know what Ariane is thinking, she replies, "If I had any thoughts, I'd tell you—but I don't." Some situations would be comical if they were not sad.
As Simon watches Ariane from an adjoining bathroom while sitting in his tub, he tells her how much he admires the odors between her legs and says that if it weren't for his illnesses, he would rather that she would never wash.
The jealous and insecure Simon has accumulated evidence in his own mind that Ariane is physically attracted to women but it is not made clear (either in the novel or the film) whether his suspicions are real or imagined.Nonetheless, Simon is preoccupied by the part of Ariane's life that he believes she is withholding from him, following her in an art gallery and physically removing her from a performance of Carmen at the Trocadero out of his fear of her friendship with the actress Lea (Aurora Clément).
When Simon is unable to leave the house because of an asthmatic condition, he assigns their mutual friend Andrée (Olivia Bonamy) to track her whereabouts and report back to him.
He even goes so far as to question lovers Sarah (Bérénice Bejo) and Isabelle (Anna Mouglalis) about what they think about when they make love.Although the characterizations in La Captive are very real and quite haunting, the film covers only a small portion of Proust's fifth volume, omitting the colorful characters that make it so special: Charlus, Morel, the Verdurin's, Brichot, and Mme de Guermantes to name a few, and there is no hint of the music, society, and themes of memory, nature, and awareness of time and place that dominate the narrative.
Though the pacing is deliberately slow to capture the enigmatic quality of the relationship, the film, while absorbing, is static and does not draw us deeply enough into its mysteries to compensate for its dramatic inertness..
This movie makes you calm down and should make you think.
Aside from the literary background, which I didn't know when watching the movie, I found La Captive very intense and inspiring.
If you are in a depressed state of mind, it might not be the right movie to watch.
A film that shows how both sides suffer.
This is a subtly faithful interpretation of Proust's The Prisoner in which Chantal Akerman makes chasers and voyeurs out of her viewers, craning to see around street corners, straining to make out desired shapes behind warped glass.
While the camera pursues the truth about Ariane, who seems to be forever drifting away, we remain fixed in the claustrophobic world of Simon's preoccupied anxiety.
As did Proust, Akerman opens a space for the exploration of co-dependent attachment, not only love, and the painful reality of the search for self- avoidance.
The Prisoner leaves the viewer caught between the (apparent) bliss of Ariane's ignorance and Simon's monomaniacal certainty.
A film for anyone who understands obsession..
La Captive (2000): Moody, melancholic, thought provoking, social commentary.
At the start I found this film very slow and I think anyone would who did not appreciate its nature before watching it.It's easy in this one to be put off with the almost entirely gloomy settings, however, they are part of the film and, as you begin to appreciate what the film is actually about, they make a lot more sense.The film is not about a plot or a story, it is about the people in it.
So this film is very much for the viewer who likes to watch, observe, think and conclude.You basically get a very slow and moody perspective on a strange(?) boy girl relationship.
The interaction between them is never really explained until right up till the end, so it's a case of watching and wondering what is going on between them.Apparently uneventful, I found myself being slowly drawn into, seduced by, their romance, question being stacked on question till I did really feel a bit frustrated.However, in the last 30-40 minutes this film suddenly becomes alive and you begin to understand what the point of it was.
I have seen a lot of movies in my life and I have never walked out of the movie theater and rarely ever stopped watching a movie.
We had to fast forward at 2x at that was the speed the movie could have been done at.
The man was pathetic and his submissive girlfriend had a blank expression on her face through the whole thing.
This movie could have been saved if the hint of romantic relationship with the girlfriend and her female friend would have been woven into the story.
Bottom line is that what this movie lacked is what lacks in a lot of relationships where people ask later "what went wrong?": lack of communication, thats what.
Moodiness, and sad puppy dog looks don't do it, we need to know what is going on through the characters' heads, what makes them tick not just what makes them obsessed.
I'm currently studying Proust, and so looked forward to this.
I love slow, ponderous French movies.
But this one absolutely killed me, bludgeoned me with a big fat dull fence post and left me by the side of one of the many long roads I'd watched the actors drive interminably and wordlessly down.
I finally had to watch it on fast forward, because NOTHING HAPPENS time and time and time again for minutes at a stretch.
I don't envy a director/scriptwriter who takes Proust on, because so much of the richness of his characters and stories is interior.
And, if you're going to make a film this boring, at least make it a bit shorter.
I can't believe I wasted nearly two hours of my time on this pointless film.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go and find some fresh paint to watch..
Modern day adaptation of a section of Proust's magnum opus that is true enough to the book in its theme and events and interestingly has the Marcel character still sunk in an archaic, aristocratic world.KD Lang lookalike Stanislas Merhar does a good job doing the insulated, emotional (and physical) frailty, trapped in an adolescent infatuation of towering poetic naivety, all the while consumed with jealousy by the suspicion that his live-in girlfriend is an active lesbian behind his back.It's slow.
There's a lot of prowling around his creaking Paris apartment, lots of talking in cars - we seem to be taking entire journeys in real time.
The use of classical music is lazy - Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is suitably Proustian, but Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead is absurdly melodramatic, especially when played incongruously, Godard-fashion, over serene images.Those familiar with the writer and director can easily pull back the gauze to reveal the real issues - an inverted couple struggling to maintain a hetero relationship - but that is so superficial it hardly seems worth special effort and the film works better with the ambiguity in place (as intended), with the implication that naivety (misunderstanding, confusion) is at the root of jealous passion.
The Marcel character is so naïve that in the sex scenes he doesn't even know that he is supposed to put it in - doing the movements without getting undressed (he's in bed in his overcoat in one scene).
The worst problem is that the girl is comatose and unattractive, showing nothing of Albertine's sprightliness and guile that gave that character her painful duplicity.
As a film student, I have to watch a wide variety of films, both good and bad.
This has to rate as the worst film on the first year of my course, and one of the worst films ever made.If you like your drama to be slightly slower than normal, then this may be for you, but even those who appreciate thought provoking over action will still be bored senseless by this absolute tripe.I have never seen a film slower than this one.
The largely static camera barely helps, admittedly an intentional move, but I doubt intended to bore us that much.Yes this film sucks, and you'll be wishing the lead character would drive his car off the road, just to make it end.My Rating: 1/10.
So bad movie it is!.
Oh, my God. I can't believe so bad movie it can be made.
After 112 minutes watching, I got nothing but one man and one woman.
I can't imagine anything that the director want to tell.
'La Captive' is, above all, a detective story.
It opens, in scenes reminiscent of 'Vertigo', with a man following the movements of a woman later revealed to be his lover.
It actually opens with him looking at her in a home video as she sits on the beach with her friend Andree.
He tries to make out what she's saying, and the whole film is his attempt to read and interpret this woman, this so-called captive (the next book in Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' is called 'The Fugitive').The first word he says, though, as he watches this video, is 'je', 'I', and this is the crux of the mystery.
Is he reading her with too much 'I', too much subjective misinterpretation, to the point where her personality is literally squeezed to nothing (her name is changed from Proust's Albertine to Ariane = a rien), vanishing from the film?
Or is it her 'I' that Simon tries to solve, as he sets himself the impossible task of fully possessing, fully knowing another person?
Who is Ariane's 'je vous aime bien' referring to - Simon or her friend sitting beside her?
The title refers to a female captive, but the real prisoner here is Simon, wandering in a labyrinth of jealousy, suspicions, half-clues and lies.When a great filmmaker films a great book, it is instructive to note what she has left out as much as she leaves in.
'La Prisonniere' (why the name change?) is the fifth book in Proust's giant novel, but those thousands of pages of Proustian backstory are absent, the tortured obsession of the narrator with Albertine, his alarmed discovery of different sexualities (repressing his own?), his past (no madeleines here!), his desires, his art, his self-justifications.
Indeed, where Ruiz's 'Le Temps Retrouve' is as close to Proustian FULLNESS as we are likely to get, 'La Captive' is Proust without the Proust.
Set in a sort of timeless present (modern dress, period locations and mores), where Proust glides in a liberated chronology, 'La Captive' discards tastes, smells, music, comedy, society (no Charlus!), nature, time.Proust's 'La Captive' is on one level even more suffocating than this film, filled largely with the agonisings and imaginings in the head of one man who never leaves his room - are Simon's wanderings here mental peregrinations, explaining the film's air of unreality?
Similarly, the underlying, organising motif of the book, music, linking the narrator's awareness and transcendence of his locale, his memories of his past, his ideals for art, and Albertine, are mostly gone, making the film much more austere, and also minimising Albertine/Ariane (one exception is the beautiful sequence where Albertine and a neighbour , both birds behind cages, sing 'Cosi Fan Tutti' (women are all like that - captives?) to each other from their balconies, a breath of fresh air in their stifling lives, from another tale (like 'Vertigo' of women subjected to dangerous and repressive male jealousy).It seems strange that Akerman should choose to follow Proust's narrative trajectory, emphasising mad male obsessiveness, rather than somehow rescuing Albertine, who is as indistinct here - as an ephemeral construct in Simon's mind - as in the book.
Even her final gesture of liberation is denied, with the suggestion that Simon has killed her, his 'I' literally submerging her in the beach from which, in that opening video, she emerged.Akerman's procedures are very similar to those of d'Oliveira's 'La Lettre', another transposing of an alien past to modern dress, where the cultural codes are not adapted, and hence jar, making us ask questions about the director's seemingly capricious intentions.
Still, I'll take Proust or Ruiz anyday.
Akerman's "La Captive" sticks in the memory.
I think it must be its meditative force, and its very concrete means of expressing some truths about men and women.The title most assuredly gets delivered--in every scene, in every word, in every image.
Ariane is viewed, desired, captured.
Simon first possesses her as an image in a private video of a group of lesbians enjoying themselves on a beach.
He then, like a detective or spy, puts his "love" object under direct surveillance, and takes her into his luxurious apt establishing her as he would say his comfortable tub, or his bed, to satisfy his longings.Thus it is that Ariane, simply be being female, arouses in Simon sex or sexual erection, predation, and bondage.
She is free to leave the periphery, free to be watched, stalked, inquisited, pounced upon , and retracted to service as a sexual prop and pliant companion.Her lesbian circle, her social life remain open to her because they spark Simon's objectifying sexuality.
Full submission means going blank, so Ariane cannot answer any of Simon's prying questions.
To respond to Simon's "love" she has had to become a thing--but not completely.
Ariane's single passionate moment returns her to the sea, to the scene of her capture, and far more importantly to the actual place of her pre-captive life--and to her strong swimming , and to the physical strength to resist further imprisonment.