Un couple parfait (2005)
Directed by Nobuhiro Suwa

Film Review

Here is the kind of ponderous film d'auteur that lives down to many people's worst prejudices of French cinema.  The director, Nobuhiro Suwa, may be Japanese not French, but his film reeks of the kind of navel-gazing posturing and self-absorbed artifice which has given French cinema a bad reputation amongst international audiences.  By asking his actors to improvise dialogue and by using minimalist camerawork (mainly static long- and mid-shots), Suwa is presumably hoping to capture a sense of realism and truth that could not be obtained via a more conventional approach.  The technique has been used very successfully in the past - notably by director Jean-Luc Godard - but here the end-result is a film that feels vacuous and aimless, giving nothing for the audience to latch on to.    Even with such hugely talented lead actors as Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Bruno Todeschini, the film fails to come alive and watching it through from start to finish is nothing less than a gruesome ordeal, not to be wished on anyone who has something that remotely approximates to a life.

Film Synopsis

After fifteen years of harmonious married life in Lisbon, Marie and Nicolas are on the point of separating.  Whilst attending a wedding in Paris, they decide to break the news to their friends...