Retrospective

A tribute to Jean-Paul Rappenau

Under the auspices of The Embassy of France in India, Alliance Francaise de Calcutta and Nandan West Bengal Film Centre, a retrospective of six of Jean-Paul Rappeneau films and six French classics selected by him (all 35mm subtitled in English) was screened at Nandan 1 and 2 from April 23 to 30. The inauguration of the festival took place in the presence of Anne Testut, Director of Alliance Francaise de Calcutta who introduced the French filmmaker to the audience.

The inaugural ceremony concluded with the screening of two films A Day in the Country by Jean Renoire and The Beauty and the Beast directed by Jean Cocteau. Now a word about Jean-Paul Rappeneau. Not unlike the many filmmakers of his generation, Rappeneau spent his childhood buried in books. Combined with this passion was his love for theatre. In that he discovered the power of the text when it was delivered by the actors.

Later, after the war, the almost overnight discovery of cinema swept his earlier interests, in fact it took over everything. But he realised that the films he used to love then had secret links with writing. The power of visual communication overwhelmed him tenfold when the pleasure of words was added.

According to Rappeneau, the role of the written word in films, that invisible presence of literature, has been the inspiration of a number of French filmmakers since its very inception — Prevert, Cocteau, Pagnol, Renoir, Guitry, Malle, Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer, the list is endless.

The six French films that Rappeneau has selected for screening are adapted from either books or short stories. At different times in his life these were the very stories he loved best — La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast), Douce and Une Partie de Campagne (A Day in the Country), among them.

This seductive power of words, in their ability to lend rhythm to Rappeneau’s direction was amply felt in his film Cyrano de Bergerac (1990). The action takes place in 17th Century Paris. Cyrano de Bergerac, a formidable fencer and poet, though afflicted with an abnormally long nose, is secretly in love with his cousin, Roxanne. He does not declare his love to her, as she is in love with the handsome Christian.

Cyrano and Christian end up serving in the same regiment and become friends. But Christian doesn’t know how to talk to women, so Cyrano lends him his eloquence with words.

The combination of comedy seeping into the serious are not much experimented genres whose potentialities Rappeneau taps in La Vie De Chateau (Life in a Castle). In a castle located close to the beaches where the Allies land at the end of the Occupation, Marie who is tired of her home-bound husband, is missing a sense of adventure. But everything changes when the Germans take possession of the property.
Then follows a series of the most comic misunderstandings and action-packed scenes, during which is a German army Major falls in love with the lady of the manor and a parachutist from the liberation army with whom she escapes, sets the pace for the drama.

Rappeneau’s films are noted for their speed, accentuated by the slick editing. Credit must be accorded to the actors as well. Rappeneau is definitely at his best in Tout Feu, Tout Flamme (Burning with Enthusiasm) when he juxtaposes adventure and comedy in what appears to be a detective story with tragic overtones. A young ex-student of the Ecole Polytechnique, attached to the Ministry of Economy, takes care of her sisters and grandmother, while her father, an adventurer, is away. He is a well preserved man in his fifties who returns home one day.

He has an eye on the family’s property to set up a casino along the banks of a lake. His daughter is opposed to the project and he secretly sells off the property to run the casino. There is much bickering between father and daughter but they finally make peace with the latter agreeing to run the casino. In the end, the father has to leave on an urgent call where his accountability is in question.

In Le Hussard Sur Le Toit (The Horseman on the Roof) Rappeneau’s direction blends compassion and irony to tell the story of the struggle between death and beauty, death and life. One must also mention in passing two of Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s selected films out of the six screened during this session, without which this appraisal would be incomplete — Le Feu Foilet (Will-o-the-Wisp) and the old-fashioned classic Douce. In both films, the protagonists face tragic, unnatural deaths which is the only similarity. Will-o-the-Wisp is a disturbing film which focuses on a young man who has just undergone treatment in a detoxification centre in Paris, and has decided to put an end to his life. Clinging to his profound discontent, through a series of fortuitous meetings with no future he goes on to do what he had intended to — commit suicide.

Douce appears to be the best film of its genre, set in the Victorian period which the filmmaker takes pains in recreating through the decor. It absorbs the viewers interest with its class conflict and social values.

Anit Mukerjea