Les Voleurs et Les Volettes: Jacquot's A Tout De Suite

À tout de suite (Right Away)
Benoît Jacquot, 2004; 96m

In part an homage to the French New Wave as well as "gangster and girl on the run" pictures like Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, Benoit Jacquot's À tout de suite (Right Now) is a period piece that, despite the fact that it's based on a true story "lived" by Elisabeth Fanger in 1975, could really take place in almost any era. Strongly acted, directed and shot, À tout de suite is sure to be one of the highlights of this year's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema which kicks off Today in New York (more info at the end of this review).

The nameless 19 year-old heroine (referred to as Lili in press notes, but not in the film), winsomely played by French ingénue Isild Le Besco, maintains a bourgeois lifestyle, going to art school and living with her father and older sister. Her main act of rebellion is in sneaking her friend into her apartment each night and out again each morning.

 She indulges in all the typical teenage rebellious behavior, including skipping class, accepting drinks from strangers and doing things she knows will piss off her father and (of course) much more serious older sister. It is during one of these episodes that Lili meets Bada, a handsome young French-Maroccan (Rape Me's Ouassini Embarek) with whom she begins a relationship. The two seem equally lost and melancholy in the world that is Paris following the national unrest of the summer of 1968, and in this milieu it seems a perfectly normal state of affairs in which a middle-class student and a young man with a nebulous "occupation" and tendency to pay for things only in cash might live. When Bada suddenly calls Lili one night and announces that he and some friends have just robbed a bank which resulted in the death of a clerk and one of the robbers, she doesn't bat an eye before caching him and his fellow bandit in her apartment for a night and then joining them on the lam the next morning.

It's clear from the get go, much as with any other well-made film of this genre, that this affair is not going to end well. Not only that, but the characters seem to have almost no sense of mirth, since it is very likely that they, as well as the audience, have an idea of the inevitable. All lips and eyes, Le Besco successfully mixes the brooding ingénue with a little girl lost in fantasy land, while Embarek is all that in addition to the fact that for him, it is all painfully real. Physically, the pair are so striking that to imagine then as models for Picasso, posing while he rearranged their faces on canvas, is not a stretch.

Visually, veteran DP Caroline Champetier's (A Single Girl) use of grainy black & white photography adds to the period atmosphere, somewhat evoking the style of the New Wave and adding to the feelings of disconnect experienced by Lili while on the run, acting out her fantasy rebellion as a bandit's moll. Music is used sparingly, with a Pink Floyd instrumental making repeated appearances, almost to affirm the near-surreal life being led by Lili.

À tout de suite is screening on the following dates: Fri March 11: 3:45; Sat March 12: 6:45; Sun March 13: 9:15

All screenings are $10 general admission, $6 for members of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and co-sponsoring organizations, and $5 for seniors for weekday matinees. Note: Special student ticket price: $6. Tickets available at www.filmlinc.com or at the Walter Reade Theater box office. There is a $1.25 surcharge per ticket for tickets bought online. The Walter Reade Theater is located at 165 W. 65th St., plaza level. For more information, call (212) 875-5600.

Photos from top to bottom:
Isild Le Besco; Ouassini Embarek and Nicolas Duvauchelle
All photos courtesy of The Cinema Guild