Riviera (Anne Villaceque, France, 2005, 94mins)
Beginning with sun-bleached scenes of a beautiful young woman riding a motorbike along the shore, Riviera starts as you would expect for a film named after the famous French seaside region. Any expectations of an easy ride are rudely interrupted, however, when we are introduced to Antoinette (Miou-Miou), an ageing and hardworking woman who makes a living by cleaning guests’ rooms in the Grand Hotel. Meanwhile her daughter, the stunningly beautiful Stella (Vahina Giocante) table dances in a nearby nightclub and struggles to say no to the plethora of sexual advances that she receives from all directions. Mother, obviously worried about her scantily clad daughter, indirectly prompts her to meet a guest at the hotel who seems respectable. Things go horribly wrong, however, when it becomes clear that the man she has set her daughter up with is a mass of neuroses that threaten to rise to the surface in a very violent way.
As a film about the sordid and criminal underbelly of the Riviera, the film is not a success. As an investigation into latent and conflicting sexuality, the film is far more interesting. Everybody in the film seems to be trapped by their sexual desires: Antoinette is single and even goes so far as to try and seduce a young pizza delivery boy in her desperate attempt for comfort and sexual gratification. Stella, meanwhile, is a mass of sexual contradictions. She states that she has only slept with four men, all of whom she has loved, but seems to perform fellatio on relative strangers at the drop of a hat. Even peripheral characters are obsessed with sex and clearly threatened by Stella’s beauty and sexual precociousness.
Villaceque’s film is most successful when dealing with the dynamics between mother and daughter. Although they are rarely seen in the same frame (most of their dialogue happens on the telephone), there is a very real and well-illustrated sense of their relationship dissolving with Stella’s coming of age. Antoinette has hit middle age hard and is bitter and painfully lonely. Without her daughter’s company (the two never seem to see each other), Antoinette’s life is a desperate cycle of work and loneliness that threatens to overwhelm her. This crushing sense of isolation is felt in the film’s claustrophobic framing - Riviera is composed almost exclusively of close-ups. To compound this effect, Villaceque refuses to use establishing shots, making the film as particularly disorientating and disquieting experience. She also eschews back-story for the characters, making it very hard in parts to discern the characters’ motivations – a mistake when the final, very violent act in the film seems incongrous without explanation.
A slow burning, beautifully shot but obtuse film that is only partly successful.
Review by Barnaby Welch
As a film about the sordid and criminal underbelly of the Riviera, the film is not a success. As an investigation into latent and conflicting sexuality, the film is far more interesting. Everybody in the film seems to be trapped by their sexual desires: Antoinette is single and even goes so far as to try and seduce a young pizza delivery boy in her desperate attempt for comfort and sexual gratification. Stella, meanwhile, is a mass of sexual contradictions. She states that she has only slept with four men, all of whom she has loved, but seems to perform fellatio on relative strangers at the drop of a hat. Even peripheral characters are obsessed with sex and clearly threatened by Stella’s beauty and sexual precociousness.
Villaceque’s film is most successful when dealing with the dynamics between mother and daughter. Although they are rarely seen in the same frame (most of their dialogue happens on the telephone), there is a very real and well-illustrated sense of their relationship dissolving with Stella’s coming of age. Antoinette has hit middle age hard and is bitter and painfully lonely. Without her daughter’s company (the two never seem to see each other), Antoinette’s life is a desperate cycle of work and loneliness that threatens to overwhelm her. This crushing sense of isolation is felt in the film’s claustrophobic framing - Riviera is composed almost exclusively of close-ups. To compound this effect, Villaceque refuses to use establishing shots, making the film as particularly disorientating and disquieting experience. She also eschews back-story for the characters, making it very hard in parts to discern the characters’ motivations – a mistake when the final, very violent act in the film seems incongrous without explanation.
A slow burning, beautifully shot but obtuse film that is only partly successful.
Review by Barnaby Welch
posted by Barnaby at 2:04 PM
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