Cinetrek #5: Fifty Shades of French

L'Amant Double, a French film directed by the tantalizing Francois Ozon, is a psychosexual thriller following the story of the beautiful Chloe's relationships with her psychoanalysts. In the first 30 seconds of the film, the audience is left equal parts confused, disgusted, and intrigued with Ozon's bold cinematographic choices. Ozon tells the story from the inside out--literally--by starting with Chloe's internal turmoils and reflecting them into different aspects of her increasingly twisted life.

As Chloe meets her psychoanalyst, Paul Mayer, the audience is presented a monologue summary of her life thus far, similar almost to the vignette stylization of poignant vulnerability. In a few minutes of dialogue, filled almost exclusively with Chloe speaking and Paul listening, the presentation of a socially forbidden relationship begins to bud--until Paul's sudden statement of his feelings for Chloe.

While I have deep respect for the stylization and cinematography of Francois Ozon, one of my few apprehensions comes from the lack of character development in this scene. Paul's character remaining almost without personality was intended as an artistic choice to focus solely on Chloe, but in reality, made the chemistry between Paul and Chloe fall flat in the eyes of the audience. How can the audience root for Paul and Chloe if they are unable to grasp the original dynamic of their relationship?

In L'Amant Double, Ozon toys with the idea that there is no solid black and white, no concrete good and evil, with his characters--they are shades of grey, each a mixture of good and evil forming the essence of their flawed complexes. Ozon's fascination with the idea of doubles prompts numerous thematical juxtapositions throughout the film--fear versus fantasy, good versus evil, innocence versus corruption, to name a few. Ozon plays with the morality of the subconscious, forcing the audience to confront the reality of Chloe's masochistic nature. As Ozon poses the question as to what about Louis keeps drawing Chloe back, we begin to wonder if Chloe's fate is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The layers of reality expertly woven together by Ozon are intended as an open-ended interpretation questioning the realms of possibility. In the closing scene, as Chloe makes love to one of the twins, her character's reflection becomes its own being: breaking the glass, and in doing so breaking the wall of reality in the minds of the audience. In a split second, the audience's perception of trust in Ozon's storytelling has been shattered--introducing at the final second the idea of multiple realities--leaving the audience to decipher for themselves which one to be true. Ozon's master of his craft is due to his ability to balance the known and unknown, giving the reigns of his story to the individual person watching and allowing them to build themselves a reality from his imagination. I propose to do the same--I have my analysis of this film, you have your own--how much does your agree with mine? Which one is correct? The answer to this is both--the film becomes what we make it, as does the analysis of it--such is the beauty of seeing from the individual eye.