Drôle d'endroit pour une rencontre (1988)
Directed by François Dupeyron

Film Review

With Drôle d'endroit pour une rencontre, François Dupeyron made an impressive feature debut, demonstrating an understanding of the complexity and fragility of human relationships that would, in the course of his long career as a writer and filmmaker, mark him out as a particularly sensitive and astute auteur.  Prior to this, he had directed a number of impressive short films, including La Nuit du hibou (1984) and Lamento (1988), which both won Césars.

After his first feature, Dupeyron would go on to garner considerable critical praise for films such as C'est quoi la vie? (1999) and La Chambre des officiers (2001) in which he probes the human psyche with increasing delicacy and originality.  He also penned several novels, two of which he later adapted for the cinema: Inguélézi (2004) and Mon âme par toi guérie (2013).
 
A taut minimalist drama which adheres to the classical unities for the most part, Drôle d'endroit pour une rencontre owes its spell-binding power to the on-screen rapport of its lead actors, Catherine Deneuve (who also produced the film) and Gérard Depardieu.  This was the duo's fifth on-screen encounter after François Truffaut's Le Dernier métro (1980), Claude Berri's Je vous aime (1980), Alain Corneau's Le Choix des armes (1981) and Fort Saganne (1984).

The chemistry between this two charismatic icons of French cinema - both at the absolute height of their powers - is electric and all that Dupeyron has to do is to supply them with a bare bones narrative for them to work their magic on us.  Deneuve is at her most engaging and sympathetic as a visibly tormented soul who refuses to accept the truth that her husband has abandoned her for good.  Despite his bear-like physique, Depardieu manages to invest his equally fragile character with even more sensitivity and inner turmoil as he succumbs to a late-night encounter with a woman of rare charm and integrity.  Critical reaction to the film was almost universally positive and it was nominated for four Césars in 1989, in categories that included Best First Film and Best Original Screenplay.

Film Synopsis

Late one evening, an attractive woman in her mid-forties is brutally ejected from a car driven by her husband.  They have had yet another row, but this time France has good reason to think that her marriage may be over as her irate husband drives off at speed, leaving her stranded by the side of the road.  Half-expecting her husband to return at any moment, France elects to stay where she is, and in doing so she soon attracts the attention of a stranger of her own age, Charles.

Charles has spent the last two days trying in vain to repair his car.  He is in no mood for company so he initially gives France the cold shoulder, hoping she will go away and leave him in peace.  Gradually, he takes an interest in the woman who clearly belongs to a better class of person than he does.  Anticipating an easy romantic conquest, he starts turning on the charm and tries to help her reconcile herself to her present predicament. Despite Charles's well-meaning insistence that her husband has left her for good, France still clings to the delusion that he still loves her and will come back to her, eventually...