Look at Me
Aug. 25th, 2018 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerLo these many years ago, when I first started writing on Livejournal, Look at Me was one of the first movies I reviewed. I rewatched it again for the Month of Agnes (the director is Agnes Jaoui) and liked it just as much the second time round.
Jaoui plays Sylvia, a singing teacher and the wife of a struggling writer. One of her pupils is a young woman named Lolita, who hero-worships Sylvia (“She looks at me like I’m a god,” Sylvia complains to her husband), and asks Sylvia to help her and her amateur chorus group prepare for a concert they mean to give in a small rural church.
Sylvia is all set to refuse - it’s so much extra work! Why is Lolita so needy! - until Lolita lets slip that her father is the famous writer, Etienne Cassard, who just happens to be one of Sylvia’s favorite authors. He also, just recently, wrote a good review of Sylvia’s husband’s latest book, which might turn his whole fortune around as a writer. Sylvia instantly says yes, and the agreement to help Lolita quickly turns into an invitation to the Cassards’ country house.
What I find particularly touching about this movie is that, from this unpropitious beginning, Sylvia grows to feel an uncompromising partisanship for Lolita. Over the course of the visit, it becomes clear that Cassard is overwhelmingly self-absorbed: he hasn’t even listened to the singing demo that Lolita gave him six months ago. Lolita’s stepmother is a girl only a few years older than Lolita herself, and although she seems sincerely fond of Lolita and tries to bond with her, she’s too close in age to offer true guidance.
Lolita’s hero-worship becomes much more understandable in this light: here’s a girl hungry for any kind of attention and guidance. Sylvia’s understanding grows into a sympathy, prodded along by perhaps a pinprick of guilt: Lolita, heartbroken about an ex-boyfriend who seemed more interested in Cassard than Lolita herself, complains to Sylvia, “Everyone just wants to get close to my father. Except you, of course” - except Sylvia knows very well she is only here, herself, because of Cassard.
By this time, though, Sylvia has entirely switched allegiances. She enrages Cassard by criticizing his choice to leave Lolita’s concert three minutes in (inspiration struck all of a sudden! He just had to leave the concert and write!), and decides to leave that very night rather than be forced to speak to that man again.
But before she leaves the house, she puts Lolita’s demo tape in the cassette player, and turns the sound on high. It’s the polite French equivalent of blowing up a building behind you as you walk away.
Jaoui plays Sylvia, a singing teacher and the wife of a struggling writer. One of her pupils is a young woman named Lolita, who hero-worships Sylvia (“She looks at me like I’m a god,” Sylvia complains to her husband), and asks Sylvia to help her and her amateur chorus group prepare for a concert they mean to give in a small rural church.
Sylvia is all set to refuse - it’s so much extra work! Why is Lolita so needy! - until Lolita lets slip that her father is the famous writer, Etienne Cassard, who just happens to be one of Sylvia’s favorite authors. He also, just recently, wrote a good review of Sylvia’s husband’s latest book, which might turn his whole fortune around as a writer. Sylvia instantly says yes, and the agreement to help Lolita quickly turns into an invitation to the Cassards’ country house.
What I find particularly touching about this movie is that, from this unpropitious beginning, Sylvia grows to feel an uncompromising partisanship for Lolita. Over the course of the visit, it becomes clear that Cassard is overwhelmingly self-absorbed: he hasn’t even listened to the singing demo that Lolita gave him six months ago. Lolita’s stepmother is a girl only a few years older than Lolita herself, and although she seems sincerely fond of Lolita and tries to bond with her, she’s too close in age to offer true guidance.
Lolita’s hero-worship becomes much more understandable in this light: here’s a girl hungry for any kind of attention and guidance. Sylvia’s understanding grows into a sympathy, prodded along by perhaps a pinprick of guilt: Lolita, heartbroken about an ex-boyfriend who seemed more interested in Cassard than Lolita herself, complains to Sylvia, “Everyone just wants to get close to my father. Except you, of course” - except Sylvia knows very well she is only here, herself, because of Cassard.
By this time, though, Sylvia has entirely switched allegiances. She enrages Cassard by criticizing his choice to leave Lolita’s concert three minutes in (inspiration struck all of a sudden! He just had to leave the concert and write!), and decides to leave that very night rather than be forced to speak to that man again.
But before she leaves the house, she puts Lolita’s demo tape in the cassette player, and turns the sound on high. It’s the polite French equivalent of blowing up a building behind you as you walk away.
