Private Fears in Public Places (2006)

Set inside a magically snowbound Paris, six lonely souls converge and commingle in their search for lasting connections. A warm-hearted story about six characters longing for love in wintry Paris, PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES interweaves multiple stories into a beautifully realized and deeply affecting whole.

Not one of Resnais' strongest films...

Alain Resnais is famous for french new wave-films like Last Year in Marienbad, Hiroshima mon Amour and Muriel. This late film of his is definitely not one of his better (though despite this it is better than most of the crap they call cinema). Worth watching but not buying. June 21, 2008

Paris is for Lovers (even in the snow).

Paris is for lovers, even in the snow. Based on a play by prolific English playwright, Alan Ayckbourn, Private Fears in Public Places (Caeurs) is a 2006 French ensemble film directed by Alain Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour; Mon Oncle d'Amerique), starring Resnais' wife, Sabine Azéma, Lambert Wilson, André Dussollier, Pierre Arditi, Laura Morante, Isabelle Carré. (Resnais, Ayckbourn, and Azéma previously collaborated on the 1993 film version of Intimate Exchanges, Smoking/No Smoking.) Nominated for eight César awards in France, the intelligent film is set in snowbound Paris, where six lost souls are brought together by a sense of loneliness in their longing for a meaningful human connections. Charlotte (Azéma) is a real estate agent who spends her time reading the Bible when she is not taking care of Lionel's (Arditi) ailing father. Thierry (Dussollier) is Charlotte's coworker, who is showing apartments to an engaged couple, Nicole (Morante) and Dan (Wilson), who are obviously having relationship issues. Gaëlle (Carré), who lives with her brother Thierry, hopes to find love through the personal ads. Lionel works in the bar where Dan attempts to escape his loneliness. Scenes are linked by the falling snow (an obvious metaphor for the pervasive, chilling loneliness that engulfs Paris). The superb cast carries the ambitious film, and Resnais (now in his eighties) infuses his subject (relationships, solitude, loneliness) with maturity and insightful intelligence. This film will appeal to anyone with a love for heartfelt french cinema, Paris, or French films in the genre of Paris, Je T'Aime, Amelie and Two Days in Paris.

G. Merritt March 15, 2008

less than the sum of its parts

**1/2

In seminal works such as "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "Last Year at Marienbad," legendary French director Alain Resnais created a whole new vocabulary and grammar for film. His key innovation involved the creation of the time-shuffling narrative coupled with near-subliminal quick cuts in the editing. Ironically, his revolutionary style was appropriated so quickly by directors the world over that the technique became something of a cinematic cliché almost overnight (with even poor Resnais himself falling victim to his own success, as his later films often felt as if they too were borrowing from the master). One can even detect Resnais' influence in such disparate American movies as "Two For the Road" and "Slaughterhouse-Five," not to mention practically half of all the "serious" dramas that come our way these days (i.e. "21 Grams," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Babel").

Although his latest endeavor, "Private Fears in Public Places," takes place pretty much in a linear time frame, it still manages to tell three concurrently running stories of lost love, each set in a slightly surreal Paris where people interact with one another in stylized settings and where snow falls relentlessly in the background. The cast of characters includes an ex-soldier who has turned to alcoholism and indolence as a means of covering up a "shameful" event that happened to him while he was in the army; his beautiful fiance who has grown increasingly frustrated by her boyfriend's indifference to her and the life he is leading; a middle-aged bartender who is having to cope with the increasingly violent temper of his irascible, ailing father; a compassionate, deeply religious caregiver who forms a bond with the old man's son; and a real estate agent who lives with his desperately lonely sister and who becomes fascinated by the pornographic tapes his seemingly prim-and-proper co-worker (who is also the caregiver) keeps loaning to him.

As a longtime admirer of Resnais' work, I wish I could say that I enjoyed "Private Fears in Public Places" more than I did. As a study of a group of lonely, unhappy people trapped in a loveless world, this extremely well-acted movie boasts a fair number of moving and even rather funny moments that perfectly capture the soul-crushing angst of modern life. The script is also commendably audacious in not providing a happily-ever-after ending for its characters. Yet, for all its virtues, the movie itself turns out to be less than the sum of its parts, primarily due to its over length and the desultory pacing that drains much of the passion and energy out of the film. Resnais and writer Jean-Michel Ribes - with Alan Ayckbourn's play as their blueprint - do a decent enough job making all the pieces of the narrative puzzle fit together into a grander scheme, but the claustrophobic, stage bound nature of the work ultimately makes us restless. And even though I acknowledge that it is probably that very iciness and claustrophobia that lie at the root of what the film is all about, that realization doesn`t make the movie any more entertaining to watch.

Not a bad movie really, just not one of his best. November 24, 2007

Loneliness in Paris

Film follows the story of six people who, to a small degree, are all connected to each other. There is an engaged couple where woman is strong and independent and the man is weak, unemployed and on the path of self-destruction. Real estate agent works in the office with his assistant who is seemingly sexually repressed but makes video tapes that make his head spin. His pretty, insecure sister, overly protected by the stern family members is unable to have a successful date even thru a love ad section. And then, there is a lonely bartender, so professional in his work at the hotel that screams of kitch in its decor and clientele. We learn about his strong willed mother who had horrowing death, father who has left them both while he was a child and is now a bedridden abusive monster. This man quietly completes his duty as a son to both of his parents while leading his solitary life that evolves around sick parents, home and work at a hotel bar. We know that he has lost his love of his life years ago, but there is only a hint that the affair may have been homosexual. There are several funny moments in the movie, particularly when a real-estate agent watches the tape at home, loaned to him by his female co-worker that is peppered with soft porn -- until his sister walks in on him after unexpected return home from her unsuccessful date. All six of these characters are trying so hard to find their way out from their loneliness but with not much success. Throughout the film there are scenes of winter and snow in Paris, that only reminds us that there is coldness in our protagonists lives and there seems to be no end to it. Wonderful meditation on detachment and our inability in today's modern world to connect to each other, greatly due to our own inadequacies. November 21, 2007

LoveBound

The Paris of Alain Resnais' "Private Fears in Public Places" ("Coeurs" <"Hearts"> in France) is a cold, heartless place. A place in which people attempt to meet, talk at rather than with each other and try their best to make a real connection but that is not to be as the vagaries of life invariably get in their way.
All of the characters are of middle age: 40-60 years of age. These are people who have achieved a certain amount of success but whose personal lives are as messy as any 20 year olds.
The décor of "PFPP" plays a major role here: all hard, shiny surfaces, bright, fake colors that do not exist in nature...all of these things contribute to the erzatz 1970's feel of Resnais mise en scene: there is no doubt that the sets are indeed sets as Resnais makes no claim to reality here even going to extreme lengths to open up the 3rd wall and film from above.
Laura Morante, eye-poppingly beautiful as Nicole: frustrated with her fiancé, Dan (Lambert Wilson, recently separated from the Army and at odds and ends with what he is going to do for the rest of his life) are the most interesting of all the couples and quasi-couples. Nicole and Dan circle each other only fitfully making anything resembling contact. They dispassionately argue, they fake romance: they are empty vessels and seem happy to remain as such.
"Private Fears in Public Places" is bright and shiny though at times it gets dark particularly when the incessant snowfall gets denser. Resnais is after obfuscation here. He seeks to muddy what we want made clear. His people are symbols, not real, thoughtful human beings: they seek succor and immediate pleasure and enlightenment. What they get is God's hand squashing them like bugs.
October 27, 2007

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