Love vs Principles Until recently, François Ozon was a completely unknown director to me, and I learned about him quite by chance, read several brief descriptions of his films, realized that this topic is very interesting to me. Almost all of his films are based on love relationships of people, often unconventional. So far, I’m just trying on this director and watching only his short and semi-film works. Sometimes I like what I saw, sometimes not, but “Prelude” is, perhaps, the best of what I saw in his work.
In general, I love the genre of "talking cinema". I always enjoy watching the characters talk more than the action. I’m curious to know what they think at the moment, what they feel. A movie, it’s not a book, you can’t just take and write between the lines, what the main character thinks, but this kind of film just meets my needs. Perhaps, this genre can be attributed to “Before Dawn”, “Coffee and Cigarettes”, “Café Dons Plum” and, perhaps, “Prelude”. Although it is a semi-finished work, I consider it a full-fledged film. Why would you ask? It's simple. It's like in school, when you ask a teacher, "What should be the volume of an essay," and she says, "Write until you solve the topic." So here, why take longer to shoot if the subject can be covered in half an hour? And, by the way, to do it very elegantly, elegantly, tastefully, intelligently and most importantly very interesting.
The whole plot of the film, in fact, is based on the story of two young people. Whatever you think, the third party is not a love triangle, it is a commentator. Well, it's all based on Bruno and Rosetta's love affair. The whole action begins with the room where Bruno and Pierre are. Rosetta is already half an hour late and Bruno doesn’t like it terribly, and he threatens Pierre that if Rosetta is more than forty-five minutes late, it’s over.
In principle, every smart film carries a lot of themes. I think there's only one topic. The problem of gender relations. At first glance, it sounds rather ridiculous, well, what is it, to break up because a girl is late for forty-five minutes, because, as Pierre correctly noted, what kind of girl is she, if she is not late, her grace lies in her lateness. But it may only seem at first glance, which makes the film seem as silly as possible. But a closer look reveals such a rich world of psychology in this film. As I said, the topic of gender relations is, it does not go away, but let’s first understand why people break up. The first is probably because they don’t like each other. Life is really very short to spend with a person for whom you do not have heartfelt feelings. There is affection, but it is no longer love. If people love each other, it’s because of personal principles. That’s where we come in with the film.
Our hero Bruno is a man of high principles. He is convinced that if Rosetta had not been late so much, he would have written 6 poems in that time, and would have almost moved mountains, quite rightly asserting that waiting time is lost time. Indeed, when we wait for a person, we can do nothing else but think about him. Maybe that's why all women are late so that we men think more about them. But even though he thought about her for an extra 36 hours in 8 months, it doesn't calm him down. As I said, our hero has very high moral standards. It is more important for him to keep his dignity in front of a girl, to keep his word to himself, than to keep, perhaps, all the love of your life. Here, perhaps, it is possible to debate for a very long time whether he loves her or not, or if he loved her, he would give her a chance and would not be so ruthless. It's a very difficult question, but personally I think I loved it. Maybe I’m such a sentimental person at heart that I always believe in the expression of feelings on the screen and I think since people are together in difficult circumstances, they definitely love each other. Maybe I just have this notion of love, but why else would they be together? But Bruno is not. As he said, “I love you, but believe me, I love myself more than I love you.” Well, what can be said about the main character: extremely self-loving, selfish... But at the same time, there is truth in his words. A person should take into account himself, should not be humiliated. A person should seek compromises, at least in love, because without compromises one cannot live happily. You need to live in symbiosis with your loved one. I think that the pledge of love is a joint search for compromises. In this case, the main character, in my opinion, is wrong. For some reason I am sure that they will be together in the future, simply cannot but be, but in this case he will have to calm down his pride, and at least she will not be late, this in this case will be their compromise, and everything will be fine. As for the main character, I would quote the words of the philosopher Aurelius Augustine about him: "Love of one's neighbor is limited by how much each person loves himself." They very accurately describe the actions of the main character. Now, if we talk about the film as a whole, objectively, the very idea of the film pulls at least 9 points, but I will not give it such a high rating for the reason that I was a little unconvinced by the reason. Being late is not a good reason to break up. It may be a weight for indifferent people, but not for Bruno and Rosetta. There are plenty of examples in which Bruno could show his principles in all its glory, but Ozon for some reason chose not the most obvious. This is the main minute of the film, and otherwise almost perfect.
P.S.: “The most tender love is to forgive one another.” – John Sheffield
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