IVE LOVED YOU SO LONG (Sony, 2008) D: Philippe Claudel, w/ Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein. Rating: NNNNN DVD package: NN Rating: NNNNN
A week after I watched this, Kristin Scott Thomas continues to haunt me. Her inward gaze and gaunt, almost immobile face take us inside her character’s hard shell to reveal a wealth of conflicting feeling that strikes deep emotional chords.
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Juliette (Scott Thomas) has just finished serving a 15-year prison sentence, and adjusting to life with her sister’s middle-class family is tough. There’s more plot than that, but it stays quietly in the background until needed. This is about emotion and theme.
Everyone has secrets. Writer-director Philippe Claudel emphasizes them with unobtrusive tracking shots and painterly lighting to create an unsettling sense of internal prisons as both confinement and refuge.
The veteran French cast convey the nuances with aplomb. Elsa Zylberstein as Juliette’s sister and Frederic Pierrot as her parole officer stand out for their subtle unease under cheery surfaces.
Claudel offers a glimpse of his methods and interests in his deleted-scenes commentaries, but the man’s a lit prof and award-winning novelist. I’m sure he has more to say.
EXTRAS Deleted scenes with optional commentary. Widescreen., English, French audio. English subtitles.
