Watched the last of my Andre Techine movies a month ago, but they’re staying with me, so I thought I’d jot down a few things I saw repeated in them. I guess it was Still Walking that took me back to Techine; there seemed like a number of echoes in the Kore-eda film of what I saw in Techine.The main thing I responded to in Techine was the frankness and honesty in his films. None of the sentimentality that so much contemporary American film has and that reduces characters to familiar types, and none of the irony or comedy that distances us from the characters and reduces them. Instead, there are a lot of complicated relationships in Techine that show people interacting with each other in ways outside movie conventionality. Adding to this complication, Techine’s films often move a wide range of characters through the narrative instead of focusing on two or three. I enjoy this breadth, this excess of life in Techine’s films. In particular, I respond to way gay characters interact with each other and with straight people. I know of no other director who is comfortable enough with this interface to use it as a part of their cinema without focusing on it or trivializing it. Homosexuality is just a part of the life in Techine's movies.
Loss, too, is a major element of Techine stories. Nearly every movie I watched had a character who’d lost a loved one, and a big part of the film was for the character to deal with that loss, often sharing the loss with other people who were also dealing with it. Like the lingering effects of the loss of the son in Still Walking. And the loss in Techine is often an unexpected element of an unconventional story line. Les temoins set this pattern for me when we follow Manu for half the movie before he suddenly drops out. Conventional films don’t drop a major, sympathetic character half-way though; that’s a big disruption of typical cinema convention.
There are other elements that recur in Techine. I’ve had so much experience watching French films set in Paris that I was surprised not to see much of Paris in Techine. Instead, Techine films are often set in the south of the country. And perhaps because of that, North Africa and North Africans play a particularly large role in his films. Techine’s vision of France isn’t of a Caucasian country but rather of one that has significant racial, even cultural, diversity. While this vision may not be unique now, it seems remarkably prescient to me in retrospect. But understandable given Techine’s inclusive vision of humanity.
I was also struck at how frequently mothers are found at the center of Techine films, and these women are not the mothers of typical cinema lore. Of course, some are loving nurturers, but most are self-actualized women who are dealing with their children at the same time they are dealing with their own personal issues like career, parents, loss, ambition, or aging. Another Techine mother is the woman who organizes the world, who sets the parameters for the kids’ understanding and who, in some cases, the kids must rebel against to become individuals. An older gay male is sometimes the mother for a young kid, too. As for fathers, you have to look hard to find them; they’re usually in a corner somewhere, grumping.
Lastly, there’s often a moment of cinematic flourish in a Techine film, and I can’t decide if he always stumbles on a serendipitous moment or if this flourish has some actual role in Techine film language. Whether it’s a Kurasawa tracking shot with a busy middle between the camera and the characters; some wild, circling camera movement; or some showy editing, there usually seems to be a moment of cinematic intensity someplace in a Techine film, a moment of cinema excess that is just cinematic joy. They are great moments.
What a pleasure to watch these movies. Not only enjoyed seeing how the films differed but proceeded out of the same cinematic vision, but the films are by-and-large good. What a great, worthwhile experience. I’ll be first in line when the next Techine opens in Atlanta.
