European Films

French director and provocatrice extraordinaire Catherine Breillat is finally tamed by a partially stilted adaptation of an early 19th century literary classic in Une vieille maîtresse (An Old Mistress, US title: The Last Mistress). Asia Argento stars in the title role of Spanish courtesan who imperils the happiness of a young married couple, though it is model-turned-actor Fu'ad Aït Aattou as the married man and her doomed former lover who steals the show -- and not only because he has the biggest lips this side of Angelina Jolie. To further pile on the unusual qualities of a costume drama by the director of A ma soeur (Fat Girl) and Sex is Comedy, Breillat regular Roxane Mesquida (the promiscuous sister from A ma soeur) is cast here as the beatific virgin married to Aattou.

 

Based on the novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly, Une vieille maîtresse tells the story of a 30-year-old libertine called Ryno de Marigny (Aattou) who is set to marry the beautiful and pure aristocratic child Hermangarde (Mesquida). Before marrying her, Ryno tells her curious grandmother the Marquise de Flers (French entertainment journalist Claude Sarraute) how he has been under the spell of La Vellini (Argento), an Andalusian courtesan, for ten years but that he has put a stop to it on the night before arriving at the marquise.

 

An enormous flashback of around an hour details the ten years Ryno and La Vellini spent together and is by far the most interesting part of the film, as all that leads up to it and all that comes after is not just less interesting but actually stuffy in a TV-adaptation-of-a-respected-novel kind of way (associating stuffy with a Breillat film is not something this critic ever expected to do).  Because of the energy of the central section despite the period language and clothes -- when they’re on, that is -- the other parts, in which the clothes permanently stay on and also feature elaborate speeches, feel even more stilted.

What energises the film’s central section is the fact that Argento and Aattou make for a great couple, though in the novel Vellini is described as ugly and Argento’s only offence to aestheticism are her crooked teeth. Their cat-and-mouse games as they go from unknowns to passionate lovers to grieving parents and back wonderfully plays off the naturally sulphurous attitude of both. Argento is a feline here more than ever, though her verbose period French sometimes sounds awkward (and her Spanish is risible: "Adios!"). Aattou’s intensity combines a heartfelt yearning with a physicality that makes his passionately beating heart audible under his period clothes.

 

Though the idea of a costume drama from the director of Romance (which starred porn star Rocco Siffredi in his first sort of non-porn outing) might in itself be shocking, the director obliges its hardcore audience with scenes in which Argento and Aattou enjoy each other’s company without all the burdensome period garb on their backs, though the film’s most resonant scene is a small moment in which both are fully dressed and Argento, after an early morning in his bed, is returning home and is about to lock him inside his room. She pretends to want to kiss him before quickly closing the door while Aattou’s face, still light-headed after all that love-making, remains floating in front of the door. He really wanted that kiss. And she knows how to keep her man hungry for more. The aura of tension surrounding Aattou’s angelic face with that tenebrous, romantic look crowned with a mop of unruly black hair is really the heart of the film: a passion of an immeasurable appetite that can not last.

 

In France particularly, Une vieille maîtresse might suffer from its release so close on the heels of Rivette’s riveting Ne touchez pas la hache (Don’t Touch the Axe), which also featured a frustratingly passionate couple at its heart of which one of the two was married to someone else. This literary drama is even longer than Breillat’s film but knows how to sustain all the passion, suspense and sense of urgency that the non-flashback sections of Une vieille maîtresse so sorely lack.