La Moustache

There is a moment in Kushner's Angels in America when one of the characters tells his wife, "My whole life has conspired to bring me to this place, and I can't despise my whole life." I thought of that line during the new French film, La Moustache, but with a twist: The main character tries to despise his life, to outrun it, but cannot.

Writer-director Emmanuel Carrére's second feature (his first, 2003's Return to Kotelnitch, has yet to have a US release) begins with a simple premise: Marc Thiriez (Vincent Lindon), a comfortable, forty-something businessman, decides one night to give his wife Agnés (Emmanuelle Devos) a surprise by shaving off his fine salt-and-pepper mustache that he has had for many years. He clips it off in the bathtub and steps out, a towel wrapped around his lip. It drops, but Agnés says nothing. He beats around the bush, confused, until he finally comes out and asks her if she's noticed his missing mustache. She says he's never had a mustache.

Marc goes to a party that night, but his friends do not notice. He goes to work the next day, but his co-workers say nothing. Everyone concurs with his wife's judgment. Perhaps they are all playing a joke, but why do they seem so serious? Perhaps Marc has lost his mind, but what about those old vacation photos, wherein the mustache is in full bloom? What of the hair in the garbage? And will an argument with Agnés do him any good?

It is from this premise that Carrére's screenplay (co-written with Jérôme Beaujour and based upon Carrére's novel) steps forth, and in its early stages we find ourselves wondering exactly what kind of film we are watching. The characters are so mundane, their lives the ordinary stuff of middle-upper class metropolitans, and yet there is this strange new element, almost supernatural, and over time the film becomes a character study of Marc, the clean-faced gentleman, and of the haunted look in his eye.

The story is grounded in his relationship with Agnés; their relationship seems born out of love, but there is also a sense of isolation between them. The thematic elements of the film grow fascinating in the scenes with the two of them, as we wonder both how much of ourselves we sacrifice to be with another person and whether it is possible to ever know another person at all. In focusing in particular on Marc, Carrére also seems to be asking questions about a man's role in an urban society, and whether in losing his mustache Marc loses pieces of his masculinity as well. Eventually Marc is driven to go searching for himself, but we watch him and wonder if there is any self left to find. We

are distanced from ourselves in a modern urban society, but with the rise of technology we also grow isolated from each other, and yet we cannot escape each other, no matter how much we try. We look for ourselves yet find nothing.

Carrére's film asks weighty questions, yet his study of modern alienation is never dull precisely because he stays grounded in relationships, with the questions coming out as a result. He has picked two wonderful actors for his central couple. Lindon is unfamiliar to American audiences but a big star in France, and this film shows why; tall and good-looking, with a decent percentage of middle-aged flab, he creates Marc as an Everyman and uses subtle gestures and intonations to suggest his descent. Devos, who by contrast has gotten healthy exposure in the States with The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Read My Lips and Kings and Queen, consistently asserts an open and loving nature that perhaps has something to hide. Their first scenes together are playful and cheery, but by film's end we look back on those scenes and wonder. Mathieu Amalric, who played the younger half of the father-son informants in Munich, is also good as a family friend.

La Moustache succeeds, too, as a visual film; I saw the movie without subtitles when it opened in France and still had little trouble following the story. It is a tight, concise film (86 minutes) that roots itself in its quiet man. Flourishes are few and far between, save for a recurring Philip Glass piece to bring out the story's underlying anxieties and a central image of a body of water that achieves its full power in the film's last shot.

By this time we understand what kind of movie La Moustache is: It starts off a love story, turns into a mystery and ends in subtle horror.

Movie Grade: A-

Synopsis:

Marc (Vincent Lindon) and his wife Agnés (Emmanuelle Devos) are going out one night. He is in the bathtub and asks her what she'd think of him without his fine salt-and-pepper mustache; she responds that she cannot remember a time when he did not have it. He shaves it off as a joke and steps out of the bathroom prepared to greet her surprise. She does not notice. Finally he asks her about it. She says that he has never had a mustache.

They meet up with friends, none of whom are surprised by Marc's change. He hasn't changed, they say; they can't remember his ever having a mustache, either. Marc goes in to work, but his colleagues do not notice. It is as if his mustache never existed, but Marc knows that there are hair trimmings in the trash, and he's seen old vacation photos of him with his fuzzy lip.

So what happened?

Marc goes investigating, and he risks losing himself along the way.