This film gets only 5.9?! First, I love Proust, but you do not have to read this specific part of 'In Search of Lost Time' to appreciate this extraordinary story of obsession and the need of one lover to absorb another, and the other lover to need to keep both a distance and a mystery in the relationship.
Chantal Akerman was arguably one of France's greatest directors before she was tragically lost. She was focused in a way that makes most directors seem fuzzy, and her talent with both images and actors was unbeatable. That her images and pacing take their time demands attention from an audience like any work of art. She uses Rachmaninov's music 'Isle of the Dead' as a key motif in sound that puts other overlaid music in most films to shame. I am here to praise this film, but her work as a whole deserves perhaps more praise than it gets. Eric De Kuyper, a great writer who wrote the script with her, is also a filmmaker of importance. Eric De Kuyper, a great writer who wrote the script with her, is also a filmmaker of importance. Everything is in order in this film. Both lead actors are superb, especially Stanislas Merhar who is, in my opinion, a male Garbo among actors. Elusive, beautiful and always holding an essential mystery in his way of acting, he rivets the gaze of the viewer to the screen. There is nothing to fault in this film, and impatient viewers, which most reviewers are, should watch it more than once. It deserves more than the insulting 5.9 it has been given, but then this perhaps reflects the quality of the eyes and minds that receive it.
