À Tout de Suite (2004) Online

Benoit Jacquot takes a real story from the 70s to base his film. "A tout de suite" photographed in black and white by Caroline Campeter, tries to capitalize on the mood and atmosphere of better made French movies of an earlier period.

The young woman, Lili, at the center of the film, is a woman from a bourgeois home. Evidently, although nothing is made clear, her parents are divorced, or at least are separated. The big apartment where she lives with her father and sister seems to be the refuge for stray characters this girl feels attracted to.

First, when we first encounter her, she is in bed with another young woman, who is a fellow student in her drawing class. There is a hint of lesbianism, although nothing is clear. Lili and the friend later meet a shady character who invites them to go dancing. In the boite, Lili meets Bada, a Moroccan, who she feels immediately attracted to. This chance meeting will prove to be Lili's downfall as she embarks in a partnership with a couple of bank robbers trying to escape justice in France.

The film's best asset is Isild Le Besco, who as Lili makes the best of the central role. Ms. Le Besco is a beautiful woman who one sees in all her splendor. This is an actress who has no problems being naked in front of the camera that clearly adores her. Her character is a complex one. The other players, none of whom we are acquainted with, do their jobs well.

Mr. Jacquot film has a feel of being a documentary in the way the action is presented. "A tout de suite" is only notable for the character study of Lili, but we don't feel involvement with the rest of the people we meet. It's a disturbing film that, judging from the empty theater where we saw it, doesn't seem to have caught the imagination of the public.

This black-and-white thriller romance sneaks up and grabs you with an intimate but almost wordless portrait of doomed love. If it loses you toward the long end of the flight the heroine goes on, it's because the psychological portrait doesn't find the intimate "objective correlatives" the two principals alone provided to start: Jacquot's moody "Amazonian" muse, Isild Le Besco (Lili), and her poetic and dangerous "ephebe"Arab lover, Ouassini Embarek (Bada).

Jacquot, whose earlier films have been glossy and studded with stars like Isabelle Huppert and Danielle Auteuil, stripped to basic DV for this character-centered Seventies "fugue" that he has said does just what he wanted to do, 24 frames per second. Without the complications of an elaborate production, working on location in Morocco, Spain and Greece and in a "grand appartement bourgeois" like a sparer version of the one in Bertolucci's "Dreamers," tight close-ups and a free-swinging camera spin out a compulsive study of obsessive, out-of-control wandering.

The girl studies drawing, not very seriously. Escaping a tiresome boy, she and a girlfriend go into a louche restaurant where they meet a couple of pretty smooth petty hoodlums. In the background lurks the dark, long-necked Bada, whom Lili goes home and draws a portrait of. The scene is set. She and her girlfriend go out dancing with the two guys. Embarek, who won't give his name, comes home with Lili and won't leave. Their passion is soon sealed. The girl is ready to dump her comfortable background and risk all. The boy buys her baubles with suspicious wads of cash.

Nothing gets in the way of this romance. Not even a call that he's in deep trouble, on the run from police. Can he come there? Yes, she says. He brings an accomplice with another bourgeois girlfriend. Then the running starts, and the fear. They've got fake passports, but no better trick to get the money over into Spain than sneaking off a train. Going into Morocco later they stuff it inside all their clothes. It's like a long vacation. They live well. Then the hot money can't be traded without big losses and they start living poor.

Eventually there's a snag at Greek customs and Lili is kept from the other three. They're scared and leave her at the airport. She begins wandering on her own, desperately hoping that Bada will find her again, as he has promised her he would always do. This is where the film, which had the intense impulsiveness of its title ("Right Away"), begins to slow down.

The subplots of people helping Lili in Athens aren't particularly memorable or relevant, and her long depressive silences clash with her sudden smiles. Eventually her voice-over picks things up and explains her way back home, where she's brought to justice as an accomplice of her vanished, but condemned lover.

She gets off with probation and finds a job with Club Med on an island -- which was where Bada said he wanted to end up. But he's no more. And Club Med is an anticlimactic ending for this frantic, hypnotic tale. Jacquot worked with great freedom, but he needed to edit more closely and rethink his second half. If twenty or thirty minutes had been trimmed from the girl's wanderings and a few more revealing scenes had been added, the film wouldn't have gotten bogged down in the true story its based on, whose psychological aspects the director needed to reinvent more thoroughly.

Nothing can completely spoil the breathless intensity of the first half hour. Jacquot's involvement with his young muse and the chemistry between her and her Arab lover are reinforced by spare scenes and dialogue and the simple black and white images -- even though lacking the beauty and tonal range of real black and white film stock -- create a memorable mood. Le Besco and Embarek are very good indeed and the camera caresses their faces and bodies just enough to make you not forget. But working free doesn't mean not having to edit tightly. I think this story needed to end differently to be true to its promise. The psychological portrait has to be more penetrating to justify the abandonment of the film noir excitement that we began with. It's too bad something so intense and economical has to end up dragging. Even so, Jacquot's new spare style links brilliantly with the whole film tradition of doomed criminal lovers that's as rich in French as in American cinema.

A Tout de Suite is one of those little-seen and little-known French films that play for a couple of weeks at the Angelika theater in New York City- and subsequently get a playing once or twice on the Sundance channel- and it stays fairly in obscurity for the rest of cinema's days. I saw it first in the theater on a whim, and I was pleasantly (if that's the word to use) surprised on how effective the minimalistic style used by Benoît Jacquot helped suppress the probable insufferable melodrama.

It tells the story of Lili (Le Besco), who is 19 and is surrounded by a kind of teenage wasteland, though mostly through her relationship with a man who is a thief. He gets in a botched bank robbery and has to hide away, and she does so with him...all the way out of France and into a Muslim country (or what seems like it, maybe it was Morocco). It's not anything that leads to any big point about adolescent angst or disillusionment or even about bourgeois discontent, but it's a fascinating film for what Jacquot decides to show with small scenes, of moments so contemplative just based around how he and his DP shoot the actors (mostly in close-ups), and how time feels not totally joined together in a weird way. And while IMDb says different, as I remembered seeing it the Pink Floyd song Shine on You Crazy Diamond was used to fantastic effect, in a similarly subdued manner.

Nothing is very highly charged with emotions, and if they are it's only in small, sudden bursts; everything is so under the surface it's as if everything will come out at the seams as Lili wanders in a daze around a foreign country- a true Lost in Translation scenario, all based on a faux- love situation.

Bottom line, if you want to watch some good- and yes, pretentious- film-making, this is one to keep an eye on for a real late-night screening on IFC or Sundance or whatever, and see if it's worth the couple of hours. I was very glad I took a chance back in 2005 in that near empty theater, even if I haven't seen the film since, as it has that authentic, independent feeling that leaves one oddly satisfied.

The good news (for guys) is that rising French actress Isild Le Besco ("The Cost of Living") is shaping up to be France's answer to American starlet Scarlett Johansson. Both actresses are alike physically with their long blonde hair and full lips, but Isild is far less shy when it comes to full back and/or frontal nudity.

The bad news is that this practically dialogue-free excursion into the life of criminals on the run is only compelling if you remind yourself that this film based on a true story. Otherwise, the coupling of Le Besco's unnamed character with a young Moroccan has little chemistry if any.

Set in the 70's, director Benoit Jacquot has shot in B&W to make his use of archive footage seem less obtrusive, but the marked contrast between the worn newsreels as his crystal clear photography negates that subterfuge. Plus none of the actors seems to have any sensibility of the period either, probably since many of them weren't even born in the 70's.

Story revolves around a 19 year old art student (Le Besco) who meets a guy in a bar and falls immediately for his Moroccan friend. She learns later (on the TV news) that both men are bank robbers so she does what any teenager in love would do - she goes with them. Action moves from France to Spain, then Morocco and Greece. On paper you'd think this film would move along fluidly but depending on your identification with the characters this could be the longest 96 min. of your life.

The film does get interesting in the last reel when the heroine realizes the error of her ways just after a sexual spree revealed in some explicit sex scenes.

Worth a look (how often do you get to see B&W photography these days anyway).

The film is based on Élisabeth Fanger's autobiographical story, J'Avais Dix Huit Ans of (translated as either "I was 18" or possibly "When I was 18"). She was 18 and in her last year of high school when she fell in love with Sid Mohamed Badaoui, a bank robber. She was still 18 a few months later when she fled with her lover and started her 2 years as a fugitive in Spain, Morocco and Greece.

Along with Garrel's more notable effort, Les Amants Réguliers, these two French filmmakers (both over 60 years old) might be trying to re-live their youth and make a film they could have made 30 or 40 years before. They aspire to create cinema like the best of the French filmmakers a few years their senior, but fail to note that these successful French film makers from the 60's and 70's made deeply personal films. It's not the pacing of the efforts that is at fault, but a lack of anything concrete to say. Just a long dose of ennui with a little existential nausea thrown in for good measure.

"À Tout de Suite (Right Now)" breathlessly recreates the New Wave/Nouvelle Vague style as a way to very effectively provide the female point of view parallel to the more violent American films Malick's "Badlands" and Spielberg's "Sugarland Express" that also portray chases inspired by true stories of the same period. But by filming in black and white, writer/director Benoît Jacquot is able to seamlessly incorporate period mise en scene backgrounds.

Isild Le Besco, a young, gorgeous actress with a surprisingly long resume, fearlessly portrays Every Mother's Nightmare of a restless, rebellious teen, filmed like an older, blonder, distaff bourgeois version of the boy in Truffaut's "The Four Hundred Blows." She quickly moves from cutting classes and experimenting with drugs and sex to the thrill-seeking of realized fantasies in being on the lam with an exotic boyfriend.

Ouassini Embarek appropriately come across like a Moroccan James Dean and her exploration of his family and roots is an unique feature of this genre.

One advantage of setting the story firmly in the 1970's as it happened is the close encounters of experiences like those that more viciously victimize today's European girls on the loose, as in "Lilja 4-ever," only terrifyingly threaten as she is able to be surprisingly resourceful, if well, flexible.

The director does communicate that actions that are innocent explorations between teens take a more menacing turn when an adult is involved, but she is more manipulative than any American filmmaker, since Scorcese's "Taxi Driver," would probably portray teen girls in parlaying their sexuality for survival on her terms, though sometimes her long stretches of passivity are slow and frustrating in between the action generated by the repetition of the titular call to arms.

The music of Tangerine Dream in particular on the soundtrack helps reinforce fears with a slightly sinister leitmotif, and the rest of the European period pop music is atmospherically selected.

Jacquot stays sympathetic to her point of view through to the end, even if the lessons she has learned seem more from a reality TV show or the criminal satire "From Noon Till Three" than a mother might wish while a parent's over-reactive lesson might be: Lock up your daughters! Close-ups are a bit over-used, but they reinforce her adolescent self-centeredness.

Enjoyed this movie. As one reviewer said: it shows what it was like to be 19 again. I liked the way the story was developed but wish there was a sequel. It somehow touched me deeply, especially the way it dealt with sexuality. The way the story ended was interesting - but frustrating. I would like to see more movies by this director. The scenery shots were nice. I wish the movie could have been a little longer, so as to develop more of the story. I saw the movie several times, just in case I would never be able to see it again ever. The fact that it is based on a book, a memoir makes it all the more fascinating. I was interested in hearing that the female star was of mixed heritage. I would like to read the book from which this story was taken but it does not seem to be available in the US - translated or not.

This film was so terribly BORING. The 'lovers' are boring, insipid losers. Ratso Rizzo was an engaging unforgettable interesting loser. These characters are just flat, cardboard idiots with no reason to be filmed. They deliver almost all of their lines in flat whispers and monotones. The wannabe suspenseful scenes have no suspense... in fact I didn't realize certain scenes were supposed to be suspenseful until I looked back wondering what this movie was even trying to say or do. ALL of the would-be exciting action takes place off-screen. Characters come and go with little explanation. 'Location' scenes in foreign countries have no character or appeal. Really, NOTHING about this film has appeal, except for the obligatory nudity of the lead actress and the wasted looks and acting of the female co-star. The cinematography is grimy, poorly lit black and white. I warn everyone, save your time and your money. This film is UN CHIEN! The audience I saw it with groaned when it ended.

This film is showing on Sundance Channel currently, in it's Festival Version (i.e. with the Pink Floyd music). I can't imagine them using Tangerine Dream instead of the Floyd...

The film is murky in it's storytelling. The plot, if you call it one, is not particularly new, but it bears paying attention to. For the life of me, and I was following quite closely, I couldn't figure out the main character's NAMES! I'm not sure they were even mentioned! The lead actress is incredibly attractive, if pouty throughout the entire piece. The other actresses have that same sensibility, if they aren't featured very much. I suppose the boys are good looking as well.

It's a beautifully framed film, the mese en scene is particularly noteworthy, however, it's 96 minute run time is at least 10 minutes too long, and the lack of a cohesive narrative will put most off.

Additionally, the white subtitles are very difficult to read in spots. I can't understand why someone would put white subtitles on a black and white film. Yellow would have been a much better choice.