Avec amour et acharnement
Both Sides of the Blade | Incroci sentimentali
by
MOVIE CATEGORY
Sara and Jean have lived together for 10 years, they love each other, they share their daily lives. Their relationship, however, was born from a third man, François: Jean’s friend and Sara’s ex-partner. The reappearance of François strains the nerves of both of them, and they begin to question themselves about their past, about the roots of their love, about what they still live for. The panorama of the wealthy middle class that is the background of the protagonists’ drama dictates the criteria of their melancholy: an appearance of well-being, which intersects with the false certainties in which they live and have lived. All ready to be stripped, to redefine a love that perhaps was a prison. Claire Denis treats every part of the body with the same dignity of her close-ups, and makes enormous physical tension overflow from every seemingly innocent movement.
DIRECTORY
She was born in Paris in 1948 and lived in Africa until 1961. She graduated in cinema from IDHEC, the French film school, in 1972, and had the opportunity to assist directors such as Jacques Rivette, Andrej Tarkovsky and Wim Wenders. Her cinema will address issues such as colonialism since her early works such as Chocolat (1988) and S’en fout la mort (1990), but her films will focus on more carnal and suggestive investigations of desire with the classics Beau Travail (1999) and Trouble Every Day (2001). Her movies travel around the world, from Cannes with Chocolat to Berlin (with Beau Travail and Avec amour et acharnement in 2022), from Locarno (where she won the Pardo d’Oro with Nénette et Boni in 1996) to Venice (with Vendredi soir in 2002). Her latest film, Stars at Noon (2022), was awarded the Special Grand Prix of the Cannes Film Festival Jury.