Venere Callipigia She was an actress, he was the son of a Russian count. Both, of course, lied, dreaming of escaping from their dull past and their present. But here, on the Malachite shores of Lake Geneva, tomorrow does not exist; for today he embraces her graceful silhouette, and as if by chance she substitutes a sharpened knee under his timid palm. And then there will be a white ship, dancing in the wind a white dress and piercing white panties, gently gliding down from a hot body ... and falling into his arms. This refined and intimate gift Victor will remember for life, as well as the fragrant honey fragrance of Yvonne, unknown why brought to the title of the film (although, perhaps, now we know why). Years later, he will return here again, alone, restless, trying to relive moments of lost love, so as not to understand whether it was or not.
Charming maiden, ardent young man, festive and festive atmosphere of the bored resort of the first scenes seemed to come off the bookshelf of a ladies' novel. In which secular walks and unsophisticated entertainment, obstacles and rivals only test the strength of the true feeling, making you wish that in the final two bodies as one merged into a passionate embrace. There is a book, too, except a man wrote it, perhaps inspired by the existential prose of a lost generation. In the creation of Patrick Modiano there is Fitzgerald’s disappointed bitterness, and Remarque’s deaf sadness, only without their desperate depth, but with the viscous sentimentality of Zweig’s novels-monologues. Perhaps that is why the seemingly win-win story of doomed timeless love turns into a series of nostalgic sobs, except that without frank lamentations on the topic of “well, why” and “how so”. Patrice Lecomte went even further, distancing himself from the genre of memorable fiction so much that, having acquired a visual form, the plot lost most of the logical connections that the book served through Victor’s personal perception. In the tape, the plot lacunae, coupled with sudden flash forwards, create a chaotic composition of disparate episodes, somehow strung onto a conventional narrative framework. And the picture of the subjective fatality of first love turns into just a colorful sketch about an unforgettable holiday novel.
He's seductive, she's damn seductive, so the director wasted no time. The touching introduction of the hand and knee is followed by a series of confident touches in the park, a protracted kiss in the deserted thickets, a water walk with a delightful view of the rounded sights under the skirt and, finally, the cream foam of the ruffled hotel room sheets. Zweig blushes shyly, Remarque raises eyebrows interestedly and even Modiano himself is a little excited, watching a series of erotic postcards, with which Lecomte illustrated the process of gaining heroes deep emotional experience. The scenes are slow, the frames are large, new exhilarating details are introduced into the narrative gradually. Here the skirt, giving up, falls at her feet, opening the elastic golden tummy; here the moonlight carefully touches the tender peach bend of the back; here the midday sun caresses the fruity ripeness of the buttocks, and juicy breasts of the color of ancient brass and asks to be captured by a bold hand. However, this fascinating voyeurism is akin to not even peeking into a keyhole, but excursions to the museum of an ancient Greek statue, where Venere Callipigia, the volatile goddess of love, reigns. Detached, contemplative eroticism, undoubtedly, brightens up the scenario slurredness and poorly worked out characters, but does not solve the global problem: to convince that all this was worth Orpheus’ sufferings of the hero, yearning for his euredic.
And not for the willingness to undress took the actors for the main roles? Victor’s handsome face offers only two expressions: an affectionate, scattered half-smile and a faint hint of confused sadness. Yvonne exploits the only image - a fatal seductress, at the same time impregnable (with bare buttocks) and accessible (with the same rich natural data). Apparently, with no plastic acting material at hand, Lecomte was forced to put the transmission of emotions on visual means. That is why behind the scenes the violin is hysterically filled with a shot nightingale; the camera then rushes in a fit of coming happiness, then freezes in exhaustion at some interesting angle; filters tirelessly jump from pastel shades of the beautiful past to the arsenic blue of a meaningless future. And in the battle of two life experiences, sweet-erotic and bitter-existential, the first wins, of course: when the director stops rolling cotton candy, the action finally loses nerve. However, Lecomte still outperformed the writer in something: he allowed to see the true Yvonne, devoid of that romantic fleur, which is characteristic of endowing lovers in tender memories. Modiano angrily goes out the door, and Françoise Sagan enters, because who, if not her, paints the prudence of playful and superficial heroines who know how to burn through life, but not burn themselves, be a prize, but not win.
Love is evil, and memory is even worse. And it is not clear to Victor that he was only used as a love simulator, that he was interesting to a simple provincial dragonfly while he was a young aristocrat, lying at her feet for days, but at the first trial by action she dashed into strangers, idle, requiring nothing to embrace. She's never been an actress, he's never been a count, their relationship is a long carnival, but all holidays come to an end. And the tape remained little known, because the film is like a woman: an attractive ass is enough to evoke desire, but not enough to let into the heart.