L'Autre continent (2019)
Directed by Romain Cogitore

Film Review

Undeterred by the lukewarm reaction to his debut feature Nos résistances (2011), director Romain Cogitore returns with a somewhat more involving work which makes effective use of its exotic location whilst telling a story of real human interest.  L'Autre continent (Territory of Love) deals honestly with the tropes of the classic melodrama and, in a way that is highly evocative of the romantic dramas of François Truffaut, shows us the devastating impact of an intense love affair on an individual (an independently minded career woman) who is singularly ill-equipped to deal with its demands.

With some liberal doses of acerbic humour, Cogitore manages to avoid the saccharine excesses of the Hollywood counterpart to this film, but he tends to overplay the emotional card towards the end and slips up with a denouement that is more slushy than it needs to be.  L'Autre continent impresses most in its leisurely paced first half, with some breathtaking photography using the raw beauty of Taiwanese setting to endow the film with a delicate poetry that evinces only the merest hint of the tragedy that is to come.

It is when the action shifts to Paris that the film's credibility takes a bashing as the story surrenders to conventional melodrama and serves up the classic weepy ending that feels all too trite and predictable.  Strong performances from the leads Déborah François and Paul Hamy help to make up for some shortcomings in a script that at times feels too mechanical and contrived.  Their character's inner turmoil are powerfully conveyed by some remarkably nuanced acting, helped by some effective camera work which emphasises both the fragility and intensity of their passionate love affair.

François's character is the most interesting and most well developed (by contrast, Hamy's character is somewhat lacking in substance).  Maria appears to be the model of the modern woman - intelligent, independent and free to go wherever her mood takes her.  But when she meets Olivier she realises that the image she has of herself is an entirely false one.  By falling in love a new Maria is revealed to her, and she is at once torn between her need for freedom and her attachment to someone who on the face of it appears totally ill-suited for her.  What follows is a searingly poignant erosion of Maria's former certainties and she ends up, like the rest of us, trapped in a maddening existential maze where love is the one and only consolation.

Film Synopsis

Maria is a free-spirited thirty year-old who travels to southern Taiwan to complete the book she is working on.  Here, in the coastal city of Kaohsiung, she finds work as a guide for Dutch tourists and meets Olivier, a shy man of her own age who shares her aptitude for foreign languages.  Despite their very different natures, Maria and Olivier cannot help falling in love and in no time they are being carried away on a whirlwind romance.

Unwilling to assume the responsibilities of motherhood, Maria deals with an unplanned-for pregnancy by having an abortion.  Not long afterwards, Olivier begins to show signs of illness and is diagnosed with leukaemia.  Maria is forced to abandon her plans and heads back to France with her lover, hoping that there is still time to arrest the progress of his life-threatening disease.  As her dreams of literary success come to nothing, Maria can only watch as the one true love of her life slips from her tender grasp...