Mademoiselle Chambon

"Mademoiselle Chambon" tells the story of a middle-aged man who leads a rather unspectacular life with his wife and his son when he meets his son's teacher and slowly begins to fall in love with her, causing all the troubles this situation includes. The big strength of this movie is that it has a fine taste for authenticity. You acan easily find yourself in the characters and understand their dilemmas and choices and that makes it both hard and emotional. This is especially impressing due to the fact that the plot itself is not too special and something that you've probably already seen multiple times in several forms. Very good acting and production though make this film stand out and leave an impression. All in all this is an unnderestimated little film that shows how easily dilemmas unfold and how understandable choices can lead to hurt and disappointment.

This little french jewel of this ever-day-movie is subtle on the edge of adultery. she a middle-class-teacher and he a working.class-carpenter. They did not and never expected, the lovefall bu, yes, it happened.She is a stand-in-techer in the class of his son. .She is offered to stay but denies for a new asignement in Paris. This the reason she tells at school. Him she tells the day and deparure of the station, waiting for him after their together-night. He comes to the station but waits, frozen by time.. She is invited to the birthday party of a relative at his home. While she plays the violine the carpenters wife, Veronique sees what she sensed as the answer why her husband is lately absnt munded: "Where are yoy?". He pretenmds not to understand but both know. She could start off a screaming scene but does not. It could not be part of the movie. Jean comes to the station but does not come upp. They both wait, frozen by time. The train leaves. He returns home wheer life returns to normality. The middle aged carpenter had his excursion what not a few men in his age are confronted with.. Some do not return but divorce. Them who return resume fresh the ordinary life. An experience for him and her, the husband and the wife. An every-day-adventure and experince of: "Where are you?".

This movie is deliciously silent, bursting with tension at every take. Against the backdrop of parochial France, two apparently incongruous beings find respite in each other in spite of an excruciating difficulty: schoolteacher v parent. Amidst the trial and tribulations, however, two souls delight in a certain serenity, calling into question our feelings about relationships which cross boundaries. The father of a primary school boy meets and warms to his son's teacher, Mademoiselle Chambon. She is delicate, warm but uncertain of her future. A tender, insightful look into the nature of human relations.

If you're under 30(ish) this won't affect you as much as it should, and will if you view it again 20 years from now. This is about life - the part of life that you can't plan and which will totally sweep you away if it hits you. The characterisation is pure perfection and all three main actors have that wonderful ability to act so well that they can (and will) move you to tears, without saying a single word. The characters beautifully portray the passion and the torment of the sudden unplanned and unexpected - even unwanted attraction that hits them like a slow rolling road roller; remorseless and unstoppable. I wish I could vote 12.

I would have given this film an extra star if it had ended after the scene in the car towards the end. Jean goes home sad but honest to wife and children and that is it. It would have made a wonderfully subtle, bittersweet tale about 'la douleur de l'amour'. Unfortunately, the director turns it into a tragedy of the weakness of man in the last minutes. The cast does such an excellent job of interpreting perfectly ordinary people that they become believable despite the perfection. Lindon, looks, talks and moves the part of a mason and Kimberlain is fragile and just old enough to be believable as an upper-class spinster. Their interaction mostly with looks and small gestures is at times painful in its subtlety. The score accompanies the story wonderfully, in short it is quite a good film, but I just was not in the mood for the fall of man.

Based on the narrative content, a film that should have been 15 minutes long. An absolutely glacial pace, and - if you intend to write a tale about romantic yearning - cast characters that might have some personal chemistry. Unpersuasive, really boring, and an ideal candidate for the way I watch a lot of art movies from Japan - hit the fast forward, read the subtitles, and see if anything worth watching eventually happens.

Jean is a construction worker,who is invited by his son,Jeremy,to speak at his school on what he does for a living. While there,he is somewhat taken by Jeremy's pretty (and younger)school teacher,Vernonique Chambon, who after is thankful for Jean's speech on building. When Jean discovers that Veronique is a one time musician,specializing in the violin,he is further smitten with her,to the point of stalking her via daily telephone calls & parking outside of her flat and just waiting & hoping she will make an appearance. This may sound like the trapping for a psycho killer horror film,but goes in a totally different direction. Up to now,Jean & Veronique were both emotionally distant people,even to their individual families. Will they find one another,or will they merely drift apart? That's for you to find out. Stephanie Brize (Entre Adultes,Le Bleu Des Villes)directs & co writes the screen play,with the assistance of Florence Vignon,from the novel by Eric Holder. The film's striking cinematography is by Antoine Heberle,with editing by Anne Klotz. The cast includes the great Vincent Linden (Betty Blue,Welcome,School Of Flesh),as Jean,Sandrine Kiberlain,as Vernonique Chambon,Aure Atika,as Jean's loving wife,Anne Marie,Arthur Le Houerou as their son,Jeremy,and Jean Marc Thibault as Jean's Father. With Bruno Lochet,Michelle Gaddet,Anne Houdy & Jean Francois Molet. This is a film that is in no hurry to tell it's story,as it's pacing is V-E-R-Y slow (take note any & all fans of Michael Bay,or any other director of over the top bombast:you will be bored out of your skulls,so steer clear of this one,for both your benefit,as well as movie goers that have no issues regarding slowly paced films). Spoken in French with English subtitles. Not rated by the MPAA,this film serves up a few outbursts of rude language & some brief adult content (but nothing too graphic & explicit)

This is a slow film, and I find certain takes to be unnecessarily long. For example, the opening scene with Jean, the male lead, noisily working with his jackhammer can be shortened with no impact to the story telling. However, this will be all the fault-finding I can do. The acting from the three lead actors is great and the music, though sparse, is appropriate. Jean is a quiet, responsible blue collar worker who takes care of this wife and son, and shows great love for his ageing father whose feet he often washed with care and tenderness. He is a simple person and a good human being. In fact, there are no bad characters in this film. What it is about are choices in life, and there are no right or wrong choices here. When fate brought Jean to his son's teacher, Veronique, who gives him a taste of another world he had no previous exposure to, he was enchanted. And this enchantment transforms itself to a fierce love for her which is all consuming. Jean is shy, and looks down to the ground most of the time. So moments of intimacy are subtle and subdued. But you can feels the intensity of Jean's feeling and what it does to his mind. In the end he has to make a choice: the love of his life or his responsibility to his wife, son, and ageing father, all of which he care about. No easy and simple decision here. And it will be difficult to predict what we will do when we are in his position, knowing that either way there will be no happy ending for all. But, hey, such is life. One can argue the very confrontation of this choice makes life worth living. This is simply a great romance story of very real, ordinary people told without fanfare. A great French cinema experience in my opinion.

Once again I have been reminded why I rate French cinema so highly. There are certain types of film at which the French excel - indeed by and large they are the only nation who continue to make them - and in the last few years we have had Rien a faire, Le Grand chemin, and Brize's own recent title Not Here To Be Loved. This is a film of nuance, delicacy, wordless communication, yearning and sacrifice. Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain - still technically married albeit separated - are simply two of the finest actors currently working in France which puts them in heady company. Individually they are superb but working together superb moves up a notch to outstanding. This is a film that definitely cannot be recommended to the Multiplex or cgi crowd as you will search in vain for violence, gratuitous sex or even swearing but if you enjoyed Brief Encounter you will love this film in which very little happens: a happily married builder with a young son meets the son's school teacher, a sensitive, lovely spinster who for reasons never explained is unattached. They are drawn together by a gentle imperceptible tide rather than explosive magnetic force and nowhere at no time does either one utter the 'L' word yet it dominates the action. Even knowing and accepting that Lindon is happy in his marriage we still long to see him connect with Kiberlain which is a measure of how powerful their understated acting is. I cannot praise this film too highly.

Veronique Chambon, a music school teacher in the provinces, has a talent for playing the violin. Mlle. Chambon is a sort of itinerant teacher that goes to wherever there is a position. For all she knows, she might be sent to another remote town to start all over again. Meeting Jean, the father of one of her students, changes her quiet existence into that of possibilities she never experienced. Jean is a mason working for himself. He and his wife Anne Marie live a somewhat happy life. All is not perfect. Jean takes care of his aging father with loving respect. He even goes with the old man to select the casket in which he wants to be buried. An unusual request, but some people want to control those little details so there are no decisions for the ones left behind to guess. Veronique wants to have parents of her pupils come and talk to the children about what they do for a living, something that puzzles Jean, as she asks him to address the classroom. When the teacher needs to replace a window in her apartment, she calls on Jean. He discovers she can play the violin and asks her advice about what to listen. In subtle ways, they come together by something bigger than both of them. Stephane Brize directed this film, which is based on a novel by Eric Holder, adapting the material for the screen with Florence Vignon. It is basically a love story in which both lovers enter it without realizing the limitations and obstacles they must face in order to make it work. Jean, a decent man, realizes he has gone way too far. After all, he has a lovely family he will eventually hurt by his actions. Veronique has nothing to lose, and yet, she realizes at the last moment at the train station that perhaps she was dreaming when she thought it would be possible to have a life with Jean. Beautifully acted by Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain, who were married to one another in real life, they make the film real because both players make us believe in the love that they could have against the stark realities of their lives. Aure Atika is seen as Anne Marie, Jean's wife. Jean-Marc Thibault appears as the ailing father. Antoine Heberle's cinematography gets in vivid detail the small town atmosphere. The original music is by Ange Ghinozzi accompanying the other great violin music that is heard throughout the film. Stephane Brize shows a natural talent for telling a heartfelt story that feels real.