2015/05/21

Day seventy-three: 3 Hearts (May, 21)

I don't know exactly why, but one day my 11 years old niece looked at me and said: "C'est tragique". When I questioned her, she told me she had looked it on google translator. Why, as I've just said, I never knew.

C'est tragique is what came to my mind while watching 3 Hearts (3 Coeurs), a Benoît Jacquot's movie. Another thing that I remembered was something that Umberto Eco said (one of his fictional characters actually) in, maybe, Foucault's Pendulum, 1989: every what if conjecture, when opposed to something that occurred,  is false; it is per se something that didn't happened. Thus, it is a futile assumption. 

What if could also be the prerogative of every tragedy. What if Oedipus had known his father and mother, instead of being unaware of his own origins? Or, better yet, what if Laius hasn't been so rushed to avoid a tragedy and wouldn't act precisely in order to cause one? It is tempting keep imagining many possible what ifs, but the reality of what happened won't change.

3 Coeurs' tone is since the first scene a tragedy - the main musical theme, repeated in different moments, tells us that. The fear that causes the male protagonist many panic attacks is a presage of an imminent threat. And so we spend 106 min. in a strained state, waiting for the worst, with the story told in chunks of time - the viewer fills in between the parts that aren't showed. The movie is a bit irregular at telling this story, it is over dramatic at times, but some things in the narrative are well presented and elaborated. It doesn't highlight the facts and situations,but the characters. And that's always a good thing.

However, for me, this is not a movie about a lover's triangle, as hinted by the title. It is a tale about fate, unfortunate incidents, the tragedy that threatens even the most ordinary lives, not only that of the big characters in history. 



Seeing Catherine Deneuve so plasticized breaks my heart every time.

3 Hearts (3 Coeurs). Directed by Benoît Jacquot. With: Benoit Poelvoorde,
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni. Writers: Julien Boinvent, Benoît 

Jacquot. France/Germany/Belgium, 2014, 106 min. DTS. Color (Cinema).
  
 


No comments:

Post a Comment