Exoticalot
People are voting emotionally.
StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Isbel
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Kirpianuscus
in its small aspects. as the traits of an accident. as choices and happy days and love and expectations and miracles and secrets and summer days and bicycle ways and smiles and words and choices. a film like others by Claude Sautet. a film like many others from French cinema. the difference - the special chemistry between Romy Schneider and Michel Piccoli. this is the detail who does difference. and impose a special flavor to a simple and ordinary story.
zipperaugo
Above all the memories, there is one with a definite form... mostly in the Love we take to our graves. This love becomes the wellspring of our final images- our reconciliation with longings and regrets. Les Choses De la Vie is centered around a tragedy, an automobile accident.Shot in dazzling slow motion and multiple camera angles, the accident is the Spine on which the Book of Michel (Michel Piccoli) rests. A lot has been mentioned about the simplicity of the story but it is the construction and arrangement of plot elements that leaves a lump in one's throat.A cast that boasts a combined filmography of everyone from Fellini, Tavernier, Antonioni and Demy to Chahine, is the Coup that director Sautet landed. The Film opens with shots of a car in flames, the victim, witnesses and bystanders. The accident is reconstructed in parallel with Michel's life. He is a man of means, a successful architect on the verge of moving to another country. His young mistress Helene(Romy Schneider)wants a house on an island unused by others unlike the one owned by his wife Catherine. Catherine (Lea Massari)is also a colleague who has her own lover. The first hint of searing emotion involves the mention of a favorite family dog, the last the family had. Michel's son Bertrand immerses himself in inventing motorized circuitry that can replace pets in people's homes. What's left between father and son except gratuitous enquiries? This thread is picked up to show a conflict between Michel and Helene at a restaurant. Will Michel chose a vacation with his son over Helene's pressing need to leave the country? Life's like a corvee to work and only a 'young wine that rarely travels' can make up for 32 years of friendship changing for a woman. Michel's love is questioned even as he acknowledges Helene's Physical hold on him. An especially evocative scene involves the engine and the road.. the only true sounds in a difficult silence as they drive back from a party. The lines are pithy and loaded with identity. Sample this.... "You love me 'cause I'm here. You'll be lost if you cross the street." Michel drops Helene off and journeys on, perhaps on an adventure. He has nothing to say because he's still clutching on to civility. The rain brings it all on, the music soars. Michel is lost in his reminiscences. A flood of sweet memories borne from pain, released to counter a new heartache. He tries to undo the showdown with Helene... in solitude, in bitter pain. He tries to explain it in a letter but leaves it unmailed.Self reproach drives him to make a futile call. The rest of the film moves on the light,airy wings of Philippe Sarde's music score. The background assumes various shades as we ride along, passing by a joyous nuptial celebration and culminating in the horrific minutae of the wreck; pulverized steel and a man's life overturned in 5 seconds. The final few frames are like a surreal homage to Michel's being. His subconscious rises as the car burns... a faint murmur to leave behind Life's damages. The victim is like a caged animal, open to interpretations from onlookers. He must resolve to stay awake even as an innocuous Priest chants the last rites. His mind is awake but people can't tell. Regret alarms his soul and brings him back to consciousness, if only for a while. It's not the pain, no mortality can stop a longing soul. But this where the Inner Voice capitulates to the legerdemain of shifting shapes in a dream. The voice rises but once. "...not to live alone," it says. "The Musician has fallen asleep" and the deep gush of the Ocean takes over. P.S. 'The Song of Helene' has an ethereal quality... almost like a fragile Cosmic Thread that holds Michel back on Earth.
manuel-pestalozzi
This is one of the few movies in which I thought I detected a stroke of genius. At the core of it is an automobile accident, filmed from many angles, in close up, from a distance, in slow motion, with natural sound, with music. Then the whole story up to the crash is sort of rewound and played again, interspersed with flashbacks in the flashbacks. As I write this, it all sounds very technical, abstract and arty, but in fact it is deeply poetic. I am someone who is quick to say French movies are generally overpraised, but here everything works so well, is so painstakingly beautiful. Nobody should regard it as spoiler when I tell here that the main character dies in the end – but what a way to go! I can specially recommend this movie to people who like to get off their tobacco habit. All characters smoke continuously, you will get a sore throat without lighting a single cigarette yourself.
dbdumonteil
With "les choses de la vie" ,Claude Sautet relinquished his former style ,film noir ("classes tous risques" "l'arme à gauche" both worth seeking)in favor of bourgeois psychological dramas ."Les choses de la vie" was the first link on the chain,and -with the exception of "Max et les ferrailleurs" (1971),which showed Sautet at the height of his powers,when he came back for a short while to his first inspiration-remains the best of this "cinema de qualité".Unlike the other works ("Mado" "Cesar et Rosalie" "Vincent,François,Paul et les autres" "une histoire simple" ,etc etc etc) ,"les choses de la vie" has an emotional power and an unusual inventive direction.Editing is stunning (the first picture is one wheel of the car ),and never a car accident was filmed with such mastery.Flashbacks are used with great skill too.The nightmare scene (the wedding) remains very impressive today.And the metaphorical way Sautet uses to depict the hero's death commands respect and admiration.The last part of the movie is almost completely silent,but the strength of the pictures and the actors' talent (Piccoli,Schneider,but Lea Massari and Jean Bouise too)work wonders.Superb score.louis Delluc prize.Remake :"intersection" featuring Richard Gere.As I cannot say something nice...
