Main dans la main (2012)
Directed by Valérie Donzelli

Film Review

Valérie Donzelli's eagerly awaited follow-up to her well-received debut feature La Reine des pommes (2010) and her acclaimed emotional roller-coaster La Guerre est déclarée (2011) is another exhilarating personal tribute to the mysterious power of love but it fails to live up to the high standard of the director's first two remarkable films.  Main dans la main is an energetic, shamelessly eccentric potpourri of a film, in which dance, music and some bizarre humour are employed with verve and imagination to enliven what is a curious melange of traditional romantic melodrama and modern fairytale.  The film does not have anything like the narrative sophistication and emotional punch of La Guerre est déclarée but as a piece of wild cinematic whimsy it has much to commend it, although its uneven pace, strained sentimentality and lack of a decent ending will doubtless disappoint many spectators who had been enchanted by Donzelli's previous tour de force.

Once again, references to the French New Wave directors abound, most notably in the Truffaut-like voiceovers and attempts to view modern life through the eternally optimistic prism of Jacques Demy.  Donzelli is not the first filmmaker of the third millennium to take a leaf or two out of Demy's rose-tinted book - Christophe Honoré has revived the old Demy magic in some of his films recently, and far more successfully.  Whilst Donzelli's self-conscious mimicry of the Nouvelle Vague does at times appear gratuitous, it adds colour and charm to her idiosyncratic style of filmmaking.  The opening sequences of Main dans la main are particularly impressive - they grab the attention like the opening to a grand opera or big budget MGM musical - but Donzelli fails to sustain the hectic pace and things have slowed down to an asthmatic crawl way before the film's midpoint.  It isn't long before the central running gag - a love-struck couple who are bizarrely compelled to replicate each other's actions - has worn decidedly thin and become a running sore.

Donzelli again casts her real-life partner Jérémie Elkaïm in the lead male role, allowing the actor to impress us with his versatility as the part (evidently a near-relation of Billy Elliot), requires him not only to hone his comedic skills but also to be an adept dancer (he succeeds admirably in both of these).  Valérie Lemercier is an equally inspired casting choice for the unprepossessing dance instructor that Elkaïm's character becomes inexplicably attached to.  Lemercier isn't only a great comic actress, capable of fielding visual and scripted gags with unwavering élan, she also has immense talent as a tragedian, able to expose the grim inner lives of her protagonists with subtlety and depth - qualities that make her perfect for the part of the tragicomic enigma that is Hélène.  Elkaïm and Lemercier form a chalk-and-cheese partnership that serves the film well, one that provides it with a constant source of humour and poignancy.  So as not to let us forget that she is also a very capable actress as well as a promising filmmaker, Donzelli puts in an appearance, playing Elkaïm's amiable sister, who rivals Lemercier's character in her obsessive love of dance.

Main dans la main may not be the unqualified success that Donzelli's previous film undoubtedly was but it has its moments of breathtaking genius and is an enjoyably madcap variation on a familiar theme.  Yes, the plot is virtually non-existent, the characters are a little too caricatured to be taken too seriously, and the eclectic mix of styles doesn't quite gel into a satisfying whole.  But, for all this, it is a film that gladdens the heart and provides a pleasing diversion from the tedious realities of everyday life, and who can ask for more?  Like Truffaut and Demy, there is something infuriatingly addictive about Valérie Donzelli's brand of cinema, and something tells me we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Film Synopsis

When Hélène Marchal and Joachim Fox meet they would appear to have nothing in common.  She runs a prestigious dance school in Paris; he is a provincial artisan who is at least ten years her junior.  But, despite their differences, Hélène and Joachim cannot help but be drawn to one another, as if some strange enchantment has taken possession of them both  Nothing, it seems, can separate them...