UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE: From mundane to hysteria

Melodrama in its purest form can be quite thrilling. The intensity of the performances, the visceral effect of the aesthetic, and the elemental emotional impact can all make for an unforgettable cinematic experience. Melodrama is of course very easy to get wrong because it requires a specific vision to get right. And melodrama, so oft done poorly, has become a pejorative. But few can deny that a melodrama that is firing on all cylinders is delivering the best cinema can offer. 

One such film Jacques Demy's 1982 opera Une chambre en ville (A Room in Town). The filmmaker is best remembered for his 1964 musical romance, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. That sung-through musical is saturated with bright colors and an almost-magical whimsy to tell a mature story about young love and the difficult process of moving on from naïveté. Cherbourg uses the aesthetic of old Hollywood musicals to tell a very mundane story where a young couple (Catherine Deneuve as Genevieve and Nico Castelnuovo as Guy) falls in love, separates, then just... live their lives. It's a wonderful magic trick, as it gives this ordinary story a sense of urgency. After all, to the characters this is a great love story and one they will carry in their hearts for the rest of their lives. When I first saw Cherbourg over a decade ago, it was to me a tragic story. Now that I am in my 30s, their young heartbreak is wistful and amusing. The heartbreak is but a chapter of their lives, not an earth-shattering climax. 

In Une chambre en ville, Francois (Richard Berry) is a metalworker who rents a room in the town Nantes, France, from Margot (Danielle Darrieux). Francois is on strike with his shipyard workers, and Margot is sympathetic even though she is upperclass. Francois is half-heartedly dating the innocent Violette (Fabienne Guyon), but cannot commit to her. Margot's daughter Edith (Dominique Sanda) is in an unhappy marriage with TV salesman Edmond (Michel Piccoli), who is violently jealous due to his own sexual impotency. Edith deals with this by walking around town naked under a fur coat, picking up strangers. She visits a fortune teller who predicts that she will have a love affair with a metalworker and then chances upon Francois. The couple make love and fall for each other, setting off a chain of events both baffling and unsettling. 

Une chambre en ville is a beautiful counterpart to Cherbourg. The aesthetic is more muted, the political undertones are more immediate, and the two main characters are older. Edith (Dominique Sanda) and Francois (Richard Berry) are not as innocent and idealistic as Genevieve and Guy were in Cherbourg. But while the earlier musical's vibrant style gave a rather mundane teen romance an almost surrealistic power, Chambre uses a somber aesthetic, which has the effect of intensifying its drama into fever pitch hysteria. As the film rolls towards its shocking climax, it becomes almost unbearably operatic. Demy places his characters in the extremes, When they say they cannot live without each other, they actually mean it as does the film. In Cherbourg by contrast, Genevieve and Guy think they mean it but Demy himself sees their declarations as childish. 

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

While the aesthetic is far more muted than in Cherbourg, it is still nonetheless impeccably designed. Chambre makes great use of its sets, and each scene functions as its own song. Every sequence of the film carries the film forward, with each character having their own motif or musical styling. Take the confrontation scenes between Edith and Edmond, which escalate into emotional, physical, and musical violence. The sharp editing keeps the viewer on edge, and the altercation happening through song punches it up to the highest decibel. Perhaps the scenes could have worked through spoken dialogue, but through song they achieve an almost dreamlike/nightmarish quality. Musicals for me have the capability of presenting honesty through artifice, and Une chambre en ville is a beautiful example of the musical genre's fantastical authenticity.

Jacques Demy also offers a hint of mysticism and fate within Chambre.  Edith visits the fortune teller, who sees the metalworker lover and another more troubling tarot card. At first this part of Edith's character seems like a quirk or adding in texture to her. But there is some ethereal force at work in the film. Edith does meet her metalworker and they fall unquestionably in love with each other within a span of a few hours. Their love story is on the page unconvincing. They are both looking for a way out (Edith from her sexless marriage and Francois from his annoyingly cute girlfriend), and they just decide to be in love. But it was in the cards, so it takes on a higher significance and becomes the crux of a life or death opera. 

Margot for her part tells of losing her husband in Indochine years back, then her son dying on the same days years later. Taking place over 24 hours, Chambre ends on this tragic anniversary. Jacques Demy, to his immense credit, does not comment on this too much if at all. It's just hanging over the characters like a foreboding cloud. The air of dread fills the second half of the movie, especially as Edmond suggests to Margot that Edith might have killed herself when she goes missing. Some higher power is at work, pulling the strings and creating this avalanche of sex, death, and unrest. 

Both The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Une chambre en ville take some inspiration from Romeo and Juliet in a way. Both musicals center on lovers who are kept apart by circumstances beyond their control. Cherbourg, despite its candy coated aesthetic and young characters, offers a more grounded take on the concept. The film is full of longing and regret, but with the opportunity to grow and move on. Chambre has a sober design but is high octane melodrama that barrels towards a doomed ending. The film is unrelenting and immediate, with fate intervening with tangible, financial, and political consequences. 

Both Une chambre en ville and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg are streaming on Criterion Channel, along with the rest of the films in Criterion's Essential Jacques Demy collection.