Last Updated on April 20, 2021 by rob
Obsessed with his ex-girlfriend Lise (Dominique Laffin), an accountant named David (Gerard Depardieu) builds a cabin in the forest outside of town that he furnishes in the expectation Lise will move in with him. As David bombards Lise with letters, phone calls and personal visits – much to the annoyance of Lise’s husband – David becomes the object of affection from Juliette (Miou-Miou), the girl who lives next door to him.
Adapted from a Patricia Highsmith story this is a chilling psychological portrait of a very disturbed man and a cleverly constructed tale of obsession. Depardieu’s excellent performance socks over the yearning and adoration David has for Lise and then chillingly undercuts it when the latter turns up at his cabin and at what should be the moment of his greatest triumph David watches her – not with joy or satisfaction – but with dead, lifeless eyes. As Juliette discovers, for all David’s romantic overtures, when finally confronted by the woman he professes to love in the setting he’s dreamt about he has literally nothing to offer her.
When David’s neighbour, the pretty Juliette makes a pass at him he agrees to sleep with her but as she’s about to give him a blowjob he launches into an abusive tirade – against her, against all women. Sex clearly terrifies this fully grown man. What is it, we wonder, that David really wants? Not an adult, loving relationship it seems but a return to some sort of infantilised, pre-adolescent state in which the possibility of sex doesn’t even exist. One of the strengths of Claude Miller’s film is that it treats this potentially melodramatic subject matter with restraint. Its characters are both sympathetic and credibly written.
When Lise finally turns up at David’s cabin we assume she’s given in to him. But what she’s really doing is laying the past between her and David to rest once and for all. One of the interesting things about the film is that although David is clearly sick (and increasingly a threat to Lise and her boyfriend) Depardieu’s performance evokes a melancholy longing to recreate the past that will strike a chord with anyone who’s never quite gotten over that One Great Love. However once the film gets under David’s romantic obsession to reveal a control freak with a capacity for frightening violence one realises just how dangerous this man is.
There are some splendid developments here, especially the way David finds himself hoist on his own petard as his obsession with Lise is echoed in neighbour Juliette’s unwanted intrusions into his life. And once we get to the third act Miller does a superb job in conveying David’s descent into madness with impressionistic touches, the most memorable of which is the final scene in which David literally wills back time and the director obliges by having the film simply replay its climactic scene of disaster in reverse to the moment before it all goes wrong. It’s the perfect visual metaphor for David’s own sweet sickness, the whole world rearranging itself for his own satisfaction. Impressive stuff and along with the brilliant The Grilling (1981) one of this director’s very best films.
