Survival Course

By J.C.

LA SALAMANDRE

Directed by ALAIN TANNER

Screenplay by ALAIN TANNER and JOHN BERGER

This is a witty, quietly savage little amorality play about a resilient young nymph named Rosemonde (Bulle Ogier) and the two men she seduces, outrages and finally confounds.

Pierre (Jean-Luc Bideau) and Paul (Jacques Denis) are self-professed intellectuals who are hired to write a film script about an incident in which Rosemonde, a worker in a sausage factory, allegedly tried to shoot her uncle. Paul insists on using a documentary approach, interviewing Rosemonde, questioning her motives about what she insists was "an accident." Pierre would rather re-create Rosemonde totally out of his own imagination. The collaborators agree each to follow his own course, then compare notes.

The problem is that Rosemonde's character does not yield to either form of inquiry. She resists all approaches but the physical. It is her defense and, as both Paul and Pierre come to realize, her means of survival. One day, walking in the country near her home, Pierre pulls a notebook out of his pocket and scribbles a passage that compares Rosemonde to the salamander, a creature that can survive any trial, even fire.

The scene is a little clumsy for such an understated film. Swiss Director Alain Tanner also betrays an un fortunate tendency to hone a point or a joke until it loses its edge. In one se quence Rosemonde is shown at work, standing beside a machine that stuffs sausages inside skins with regular bursts of phallic efficiency. The image is funny and outrageous at first, but Tanner holds it longer to convey Rose monde's glazed boredom, then longer still, as if congratulating himself on his own cleverness.

La Salamandre is a cool movie, reminiscent of such Eric Rohmer films as My Night at Maud's and Claire's Knee. But where Rohmer teases the intellect, Tanner pierces the jugular. In Salamandre 's best moment, Pierre returns home, ashamed of his affair with Rosemonde and eager to confess to his wife. She listens to the whole story, nods, then nonchalantly reads Pierre a passage of supreme irrelevance from Heine. He goes back to the city to find Rosemonde. At least she is alive.

J.C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.