FILM OF THE WEEK
INTERVIEW | review: Comme une image (Look at Me) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Friday, 29 October 2004 | |
 Actress Agnès Jaoui’s last film, Le rôle de sa vie (The Role of her Life), was a decent work about fame and being famous. In Rôle... she played an actress that was as much a diva as the admiring world around her would allow her to be. In her new film, in which she not only stars but which she also wrote (together with Jean-Pierre Bacri) and directed, the story revolves around a similar theme, though this time she is not being admired but is one of the admiring. Much to her credit, Comme une image (Look at Me, though the literal translation would be "Like A Picture") is a more dense, observant and lyrical film than Le rôle de sa vie. Its scope is wider as well, and without an obvious catharsis for any of its characters, it is also more true to life.The famous person in this case is Étienne Cassard (Bacri, Jaoui's real-life husband), a well-known author and publisher, and he is just as much a diva as Agnès was in Le rôle de sa vie. His 20-year-old daughter Lolita (newcomer Marilou Berry) is a passionate singer and aspiring actress, not that her father would notice. He seems more interested in his much younger blond wife, who looks like a model, and their small child, but above all -- like any true snob -- he seems supremely interested in himself. Lolita, who does not have the perfect figure of her new surrogate mum who is not much older than she, but she tries to conform despite feeling that having a famous father is a real burden. Not only does her father find himself the most interesting and infallible member of the household, but other people always seem to befriend Lolita just so that they can get to her more famous co-creator. One of the people in this category is Sylvia Millet (Jaoui), who would like to pride herself on her principles but who, more often than not, seems to get lost in the quicksand of dictated societal behaviour. She is Lolita’s singing coach and keeps telling herself she should stop coaching Lolita and her friends (who are preparing for a charity concert) because it is eating up all of her spare time. She is about to tell her when she discovers that Lolita Cassard is not just any Cassard but "the daughter of...". It just so happens that Sylvia’s companion is a struggling author who could benefit from Cassard’s connections. The latter half of Comme une image throws all the established major and many of the minor characters together in the Cassards' house in the countryside, which proves to be an explosive cocktail of egoism, non-conformism and doing the right thing. Lolita, though suffering from her father’s remarks on her unbecoming (read: fat) figure and needy of some attention proves to be not completely innocent herself. In fact, one of the major reasons why this screenplay works so well is because everyone is at once victim and guilty of something they should not have done, though in varying proportions. Just like in real life there are no flawless heroes nor innocent victims. Berry, as the self-conscious Lolita, is perfectly cast. Though Jaoui and Bacri give great performances, Berry outshines them both, turning Lolita into someone who has been hurt, is complicated, nuanced and real. It is her performance that is at the centre of this film, and this is just as much due to the screenplay as it is to Ms Berry’s performance. Comme une image will linger in the mind long after theend-credits have disappeared. |
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