Of Techine’s 80s films, the other ones I've seen are Le lieu du crime and Hotel des Ameriques, and Rendez-vous is at the high end of that gamut.
I remember how Lili’s personality in Lieu swings from one orientation to another and how Gilles’ personality suddenly veers off into far left field in Hotel; the personalities in Rendez-vous have a similar volatility to them and can seem unmotivated, unexpected or out of proportion.
I feel this a little in Paulot, who starts the film as a noodle-y assistant to an overbearing female boss. He falls in love with Nina and wants to have sex with her, but he’s the only person in the film she won’t accept; she’s aware that she uses sex to get her way with men and protests that she loves him and doesn’t want to manipulate him with sex. However, rejection alters Paulot, and his love first becomes obsession and then anger and then rejection. Both Quentin and the usher boyfriend have had Nina, and losing at that male completion makes Paulot even more aggressive and angry. Nina ultimately offers herself to him, but that’s the end of the relationship; not only does her act imply her need overcoming her love, but the rape-like quality of the scene shows that Paulot’s real concern at that point is power more than love. There are two pairs of scenes which, (perhaps heavy-handed) measure of the change in Paulot. Nina offers herself to Paulot twice, and he reacts differently at each invitation, declining out of shame or love the first time and accepting out of a need to exert power the second. In the second pair, Nina gives Paulot theater tickets twice. The first time, he gratefully accepts and attends; the second time, he tears up the tickets and throws them away. Such parallels are a little contrived, but they serve as indices of change in Paulot’s character. Like in the other two 80s films, the character tangent here is somewhat fast. But at least it has some motivation.
I wasn’t able to fill in all the gaps in Nina’s character at all, and the info in those gaps would have been important. First, I don’t understand why Nina “loves” Paulot. He’d done nothing to inspire love in her when she first turns him down, and having sex would not have been a major deal to Nina. I also found her sudden love of Quentin unmotivated, even unconvincing. Maybe she wants to rescue him from his problems despite his protestations about not wanting help. But I saw nothing in the suddenness of that love that would make it deep enough to lead to her having visions of him after he dies or of her fixation on playing Juliette. And I didn’t get why she wants
Paulot in her life so badly in the latter part of the film. Perhaps her (unconvincing) love of Quentin had shaken her and she wants Paulot as a crutch. Nina is the center of this film, and she is the part that holds together the least for me.
I like Lambert Wilson as Quentin. He is a perfect Heathcliff -- enigmatic, disturbed, threatening, tortured, self-destructive. His psychology isn’t much of a question here because he doesn’t change. He’s another of these major characters like Manu in Temoins and the boyfriend in RER who drops out in the middle of the movie, setting up the character theme of how to deal with loss; it’s a brave plot structure and theme that Techine uses several times. I like it.
Since I never got the Nina-Quentin love, the last part of the film about the production of Romeo and Juliet wasn’t very compelling or satisfying. Nina’s role as Juliet certainly takes a toll on her non-professional life, but her motivation is so unclear to me that this section of the film falls flat. Perhaps both Nina and Scrutzler are working through their grief by using the play to conjure their lost loves. In any case, it was interesting to discover here a film that looks at some of the same issues as Aronofski’s Black Swan,. The artistic project in both films soon begins to creep beyond the performance an into the performers' daily lives, and in both films, the performance is a sort of therapy or enactment of a desire. But while the motivation of Aronofski’s Nina is evident, I just didn’t get why Techine’s Nina is doing Romeo and Juliet. (hmmmm...two Ninas?….it might be worth pondering whether Romeo and Juliet informs the structure of Rendez-vous the way the structure of Swan Lake informs Black Swan…..)
I remember how Lili’s personality in Lieu swings from one orientation to another and how Gilles’ personality suddenly veers off into far left field in Hotel; the personalities in Rendez-vous have a similar volatility to them and can seem unmotivated, unexpected or out of proportion.
I feel this a little in Paulot, who starts the film as a noodle-y assistant to an overbearing female boss. He falls in love with Nina and wants to have sex with her, but he’s the only person in the film she won’t accept; she’s aware that she uses sex to get her way with men and protests that she loves him and doesn’t want to manipulate him with sex. However, rejection alters Paulot, and his love first becomes obsession and then anger and then rejection. Both Quentin and the usher boyfriend have had Nina, and losing at that male completion makes Paulot even more aggressive and angry. Nina ultimately offers herself to him, but that’s the end of the relationship; not only does her act imply her need overcoming her love, but the rape-like quality of the scene shows that Paulot’s real concern at that point is power more than love. There are two pairs of scenes which, (perhaps heavy-handed) measure of the change in Paulot. Nina offers herself to Paulot twice, and he reacts differently at each invitation, declining out of shame or love the first time and accepting out of a need to exert power the second. In the second pair, Nina gives Paulot theater tickets twice. The first time, he gratefully accepts and attends; the second time, he tears up the tickets and throws them away. Such parallels are a little contrived, but they serve as indices of change in Paulot’s character. Like in the other two 80s films, the character tangent here is somewhat fast. But at least it has some motivation.
I wasn’t able to fill in all the gaps in Nina’s character at all, and the info in those gaps would have been important. First, I don’t understand why Nina “loves” Paulot. He’d done nothing to inspire love in her when she first turns him down, and having sex would not have been a major deal to Nina. I also found her sudden love of Quentin unmotivated, even unconvincing. Maybe she wants to rescue him from his problems despite his protestations about not wanting help. But I saw nothing in the suddenness of that love that would make it deep enough to lead to her having visions of him after he dies or of her fixation on playing Juliette. And I didn’t get why she wants
Paulot in her life so badly in the latter part of the film. Perhaps her (unconvincing) love of Quentin had shaken her and she wants Paulot as a crutch. Nina is the center of this film, and she is the part that holds together the least for me.I like Lambert Wilson as Quentin. He is a perfect Heathcliff -- enigmatic, disturbed, threatening, tortured, self-destructive. His psychology isn’t much of a question here because he doesn’t change. He’s another of these major characters like Manu in Temoins and the boyfriend in RER who drops out in the middle of the movie, setting up the character theme of how to deal with loss; it’s a brave plot structure and theme that Techine uses several times. I like it.
Since I never got the Nina-Quentin love, the last part of the film about the production of Romeo and Juliet wasn’t very compelling or satisfying. Nina’s role as Juliet certainly takes a toll on her non-professional life, but her motivation is so unclear to me that this section of the film falls flat. Perhaps both Nina and Scrutzler are working through their grief by using the play to conjure their lost loves. In any case, it was interesting to discover here a film that looks at some of the same issues as Aronofski’s Black Swan,. The artistic project in both films soon begins to creep beyond the performance an into the performers' daily lives, and in both films, the performance is a sort of therapy or enactment of a desire. But while the motivation of Aronofski’s Nina is evident, I just didn’t get why Techine’s Nina is doing Romeo and Juliet. (hmmmm...two Ninas?….it might be worth pondering whether Romeo and Juliet informs the structure of Rendez-vous the way the structure of Swan Lake informs Black Swan…..)
