Review by Robert Barry
Stars Sabine Azéma, André Dussolier, Anne Consigny, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos, Michel Vuillermoz, Edouard Baer
Written by Alex Réval & Laurent Herbiet
Based on the novel L'Incident, by Christian Gailly
Certification UK 12A | US PG
Runtime 104 minutes
Directed by Alain Resnais
The incident, we are told, is not important. The theft of a woman's bag, a man's accidental discovery of her wallet in a carpark. It could have been anything. It could have happened in any place. Nonetheless, we are told it happens in Paris, and in one of its nicer suburbs (no burning cars here). By way of this trivial event, the paths of these two curious people become crossed: a woman, played by Sabine Azéma (Smoking / No Smoking, Rossini! Rossini!), who seems to regard being mugged in the streets as a mere minor inconvenince; and a man, played by Andre Dussolier (Amelie, Private Fears in Public Places), for whom finding her wallet seems absolutely cataclysmic. To the astonishment of everyone around them, the more curiously each reacts to the other, the more they become fascinated with each other. And so these strands of wild grass, creeping between the cracks of society, become entwined, with both joyful and catastrophic results.
Resnais has talked about finding in this particular story of Christian Gailly's what he calls a certain "blue note". In music, the blue note is a note of dissonance and undecidability that teeters the scale between major and minor keys. Equally Wild Grass represents a kind of blue note for Resnais, teetering between the kind of surreal psycho-dramas that made his name (such as Last Year at Marienbad) and the almost genteel comedies of later years (Smoking/No Smoking). With a plot forever threatening to turn into Patricia Highsmith territory, combined with an awkward sense of comedy apparently inspired by Curb Your Enthusiasm, Resnais's latest is a curious hybrid creature, so unsure of its own nature that it even has two endings.
The result is a somewhat maddening experience, by turns frustrating and astonishing. You approach the film rather as Dussolier and Azéma's characters approach each other: with a curious lack of engagement, you are never allowed to empathise with the characters fully because their motives are too obscure, their actions almost mechanical sometimes, as if under hypnosis. Yet there is this voyeuristic fascination, attraction mingled with repulsion. They are frequently observing each other through screens, windows, mirrors and seem to come together tentatively but inexorably, albeit through a certain amount of resistance on both sides. And all the while this light tone and odd sense of levity, punctuated by Mark Snow's breezy little score that only shows signs of his X-Files past in the opening and closing credits. One leaves feeling almost offended by the thing, as though you had been accosted by a stranger, intent on making you believe something preposterous for no apparent reason.