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LET THE SUNSHINE IN
****
Dir: Claire Denis
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Xavier Beauvois, Gerard Depardieu
(France, 15, 1hrs 35 mins)
“Women are not rehabilitation centres for badly raised boys.” This sentence is one that has been doing the rounds on Twitter of late and is an idea that is clearly typified in Let The Sunshine In. Throughout the film, Juliette Binoche’s character Isabelle is more often than not a park bench for men to sit upon and bore unto about their problems, rambling without interruption or thought for the listener. “I’m tired,” she says throughout the film and in her voice you can hear the voices of women everywhere; tired of all of the minding, the listening, of the consideration they bear. A beautiful cinematic achievement is that a huge space is somehow carved out for the men as they sit along side Binoche, her presence and importance squished into a corner as they carry on: the space is theirs. The men own the space here.
There is an overarching focus on the nature of the male ego and the condition of male and female alongside each other, particularly in the world of romance. What are the rules? What can we get away with? Are we on equal playing fields? And most of all – who’s fault is that? It is an extended commentary on the relationship between men and women and why it is that some women just cannot find love. Binoche’s performance is one, continual lamentation – on her life, the men in it and everything it is lacking. She is chronically lonely. You can feel her yearning from behind the screen, painful and looking outside of herself at all the problems she cannot fix. One particular dishcloth of a man (Xavier Beauvois) begins to borderline stalk Isabelle after she throws him out. Whether she wants to see him again or even likes him at all is clearly of no consequence to the man. He calls her and opens with; “Isabelle, I’m sad.” Isabelle hangs up. Isabelle is tired.
Although many faults lie in the men in this film – it is hard to park all of the blame with them. Isabelle regularly acts erratically and sometimes desperate, ignoring red flags and accepting inarguable disrespect from men in favour of spending time with them. She is at fault in many instances. She also is not (refreshingly) presented as the classically clean, slightly sexually-inclined woman. What is so invigorating about Denis’ films is that they do not shy away from the darkness of the human psyche. Isabelle speaks openly about the “disgusting” things that made her “cum” while she was “fucking that bastard” and it is a relief to see such nonchalance and frankness around the bizarreness of human sexuality that it so absent from Hollywood. And it is unapologetically afforded to a female protagonist
Binoche is flawless in her portrayal of Isabelle. She manages to carry both an startlingly deep vulnerability alongside the staunchness of a talented and modern woman into all of her scenes. Her face dances from lightness to shadow in a second and never comes across as “too much.” Her longing to be loved is something that Isabelle does not hide. Which, in a certain sense, makes her braver than most. But does it win her the love she so longs?
words RUTH SEAVERS