#Francis William Rhéaume

[genevieveetguy]

The Nature of Love (Simple comme Sylvain), Monia Chokri (2023)

[moviemosaics]

The Nature of Love

directed by Monia Chokri, 2023

[watchingalotofmovies]

The Nature of Love

The Nature of Love    [trailer]

Sophia's life is turned upside down when she meets Sylvain. She comes from a wealthy family, while he comes from a family of manual workers. She questions her own values after abandoning herself to her great romantic impulses.

Very good relationship movie for grown-ups.

While often playful and funny, it's still an honest and mature examination of the divergent impulses of wanting a passionate and/or a comfortable and secure relationship. To follow your heart or your head.

And it's a rare the case of being told from a decidedly female perspective. It also doesn't provide an easy answer.

[la-natura-dellamore-italia-sub]

LA NATURA DELL'AMORE

✔️ 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐑𝐀 𝐐𝐔𝐈 ▶ https://t.co/SAC0N98Rcc

:: Trama La natura dell'amore ::

Sophia è una professoressa di filosofia del Quebec, quarantenne colta e benestante, da tempo sposata con Xavier. L'incontro con Sylvain, l'operaio chiamato a restaurare la casa sul lago della coppia, sconvolge finalmente la vita ordinata di Sophia: irresistibilmente attratta dall'uomo, travolgente e rude tanto quanto il marito è educato e distaccato, la donna si fa coinvolgere da un amore totale e trova il coraggio di seguire la sua passione. La distanza culturale e i pregiudizi dei due amanti finiranno però per ostacolare la relazione. Monia Chokri prosegue dopo Babysitter l'analisi del desiderio femminile con un melodramma al tempo raffinato e sguaiato, all'incerto confine fra ironia e parodia. La natura dell'amore è un melodramma, e come tale parla soprattutto in termini visivi, affidando alla caratterizzazione dei personaggi - gli abiti, l'ambiente in cui si muovono, le parole che usano, i gesti che compiono, anche le urla che emettono - il compito di esprimere le loro emozioni e i loro desideri. Solo prendendo alla lettera il ruolo che ogni maschera impone si finisce per incontrare la vera natura. Di sé e dell'amore. Per il resto, tanto la vita borghese quanto quella trasgressiva o liberatoria, non sono altro che recite curate e sfinenti.

Un film (in Italiano anche pellicola) è una serie di immagini che, dopo essere state registrate su uno o più supporti cinematografici e una volta proiettate su uno schermo, creano l'illusione di un'immagine in movimento.[1] Questa illusione ottica permette a colui che guarda lo schermo, nonostante siano diverse immagini che scorrono in rapida successione, di percepire un movimento continuo.

Il processo di produzione cinematografica viene considerato ad oggi sia come arte che come un settore industriale. Un film viene materialmente creato in diversi metodi: riprendendo una scena con una macchina da presa, oppure fotografando diversi disegni o modelli in miniatura utilizzando le tecniche tradizionali dell'animazione, oppure ancora utilizzando tecnologie moderne come la CGI e l'animazione al computer, o infine grazie ad una combinazione di queste tecniche.

L'immagine in movimento può eventualmente essere accompagnata dal suono. In tale caso il suono può essere registrato sul supporto cinematografico, assieme all'immagine, oppure può essere registrato, separatamente dall'immagine, su uno o più supporti fonografici.

Con la parola cinema (abbreviazione del termine inglese cinematography, "cinematografia") ci si è spesso normalmente riferiti all'attività di produzione dei film o all'arte a cui si riferisce. Ad oggi con questo termine si definisce l'arte di stimolare delle esperienze per comunicare idee, storie, percezioni, sensazioni, il bello o l'atmosfera attraverso la registrazione o il movimento programmato di immagini insieme ad altre stimolazioni sensoriali.[2]

In origine i film venivano registrati su pellicole di materiale plastico attraverso un processo fotochimico che poi, grazie ad un proiettore, si rendevano visibili su un grande schermo. Attualmente i film sono spesso concepiti in formato digitale attraverso tutto l'intero processo di produzione, distribuzione e proiezione.

Il film è un artefatto culturale creato da una specifica cultura, riflettendola e, al tempo stesso, influenzandola. È per questo motivo che il film viene considerato come un'importante forma d'arte, una fonte di intrattenimento popolare ed un potente mezzo per educare (o indottrinare) la popolazione. Il fatto che sia fruibile attraverso la vista rende questa forma d'arte una potente forma di comunicazione universale. Alcuni film sono diventati popolari in tutto il mondo grazie all'uso del doppiaggio o dei sottotitoli per tradurre i dialoghi del film stesso in lingue diverse da quella (o quelle) utilizzata nella sua produzione.

Le singole immagini che formano il film sono chiamate "fotogrammi". Durante la proiezione delle tradizionali pellicole di celluloide, un otturatore rotante muove la pellicola per posizionare ogni fotogramma nella posizione giusta per essere proiettato. Durante il processo, fra un frammento e l'altro vengono creati degli intervalli scuri, di cui però lo spettatore non nota la loro presenza per via del cosiddetto effetto della persistenza della visione: per un breve periodo di tempo l'immagine permane a livello della retina. La percezione del movimento è dovuta ad un effetto psicologico definito come "fenomeno Phi".

[havaforever]

SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN - Aime-t-on, désire-t-on ce qui nous est étranger, ou ce qui nous ressemble, ce que l’on nous a appris à aimer ? Vous avez deux heures.

C’est à ces questions qu’est entièrement rivé le troisième long métrage de l’actrice et cinéaste québécoise Monia Chokri qui, déjà dans Babysitter (2022), se colletait avec outrance et fracas avec toutes les injonctions du désir, de l’amour et à ce grand imaginaire amoureux nourri de fantasmes et de théories.

Sofia (géniale Magalie Lépine-Blondeau) en enseigne d’ailleurs les principes philosophiques à une classe de retraité·es. Elle vit depuis dix ans avec Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) une relation transformée par le temps en une parfaite complicité intellectuelle, tout aussi stimulante qu’ennuyeuse.

Sa rencontre avec Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), charpentier sexy et absolu négatif de sa vie d’érudite, fait bientôt exploser les fondations de son petit monde cérébral et bourgeois. Les questions sont posées sans que le film n’ambitionne d’y répondre et c’est avec une infinie habileté (qui n’évite pas le cliché et le regarde, au contraire, comme le stigmate influent d’un système de représentations à la peau dure) que Chokri les déploie.

Simple comme Sylvain épouse les codes très calibrés de la comédie romantique, quand son héroïne succombe sciemment aux fantasmes testostéronés de “l’homme”, et les stéréotypes de la dissociation entre l’homme-physique et l’homme-cerveau. Mais il ramène également sans cesse le genre à une contemporanéité féministe et à une lecture politique où la lutte des classes est complexifiée par l’enjeu d’une relation à deux.

Et bien que Chokri ne se montre d’ailleurs pas toujours très tendre avec l’équation périlleuse d’une histoire entre un prolo et une intello (les deux clans en prennent pour leur grade), on sent qu’elle le fait non par mépris ou refus catégorique d’une possible utopie, mais par souci émancipateur pour une héroïne écartelée entre deux visions binaires des rapports amoureux hétérosexuels. Le film sait d’ailleurs aussi très bien capter, avec beaucoup d’allant, le surgissement dans le corps de son interprète d’un retour d’érotisme et de sensualité.

NOTE 15/20 - D’une très grande drôlerie, Simple comme Sylvain renferme toutefois une musique plus amère mais aussi plus profonde et mélancolique sur les amours passées et les fantômes d’une vie – pas un hasard s’il s’ouvre et se clôt dans une station-service...

[ronald-films]

Short Review | Simple comme Sylvain

Original/Dutch title: Simple comme Sylvain

Production year：2023

Director/Writer：Monia Chokri

Produced in: Quebec, Canada; France

Rating：7.0/10 (Douban); 3.7/5 (Letterboxd); 7.2/10 (MUBI) (29 Jan. 2024)

My rating：7.89/10

Last week’s cinema was quite busy: the latest hit All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh, 2023) was on première, alongside with the hits of the past weeks – Monster (Hikokazu Hore-eda, 2023), The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023), and Priscilla (Sophia Coppola, 2023). Also, the cinema starts to prepare for the upcoming International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). This lower-budget film, Simple comme Sylvain, gains therefore less attention from the audience.  

Simple comme Sylvain, written and directed by Quebecois director Monia Chokri, tells a story about the relationship life of Sophia (Magalie Léphine-Blondeau), a senior’s university lecturer. After living with her partner, Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) for 10 years, she met Sylvain (Yves-Pierre Cardial), the worker for her new house in the countryside, and fell in love with him. Such a storyline may sound very ordinary and even cliché, but it is presented in this film with a strong visual style and through detailed description of psychological activities, and discusses the love life and desire in modern relationships. 

The first impression of watching this film is the ‘lively’ camerawork. In the beginning, the zooming reminded me of a typical Lars von Trier zooming in his later films such as Nymphomaniac, Melancholia, and The House that Jack Built — a high-speed zoom-in to the face of a character while moving the camera. As what it physically does, it makes the audience’s attention also to focus on the targeted subject, to remind the audience to pay attention to their reaction or their psychological activities. I imagine that to focus on someone quickly after the zoom-in is not easy, but this film used this technique throughout the course of its length. Compared to Von Trier, this film’s zoom-in is more frequent, greater in depth, and more complex. It zooms from outside the window to the face of characters through a book shelf. Beside, I noticed that there were few takes of fixed-position camera - it moves more or less to and from the subjects, or around them. Although I am not sure how this necessarily associates with the other aspects of the film, but it does make me remember its camerawork — and I guess it is an advantage. At least, I like it.

Under the basic structure of ‘cheating’ within marriage and that sort of plots, Simple comme Sylvain goes deeper into the different needs of people in a relationship, namely life and (sexual) desire. There are often discussion about the (quite significant) role of sex in a relationship, which also explains why people cheat, but the discussion stops there. What if the sexually-satisfactory life also disappoints you? This film presents you such an experiment of choice. There is the traditional lover, your ‘soul mate’ who is intelligently similar to you and whose social circle consists mainly people on such level. Sometimes it gets boring, but after spending time with someone who sexually satisfies you but with a totally different social, economic, or educational background, with which you always feel like an outsider, you realised that the only thing that really satisfies you is just sex. Sophia tried to go back with Xavier, while after unsatisfying sex, they broke up again, and she finally chose Sylvain. Life is not simple: ideally, we want to live with someone that shares the same amount of vocabulary with you, and meanwhile having sex with someone who provides you with sexual pleasure; but that is not realistic. The title says “Simple comme Sylvain”, literally ’Simple as Sylvain’, but to be a Sylvain is not easy, either, especially for those knowledgeable, intelligent, and on a higher social-economic level than those ‘countrysiders’, they talk about abstract topics and getting more and more distant from the real happenings. Broadly, the polarisation of different social classes causes our split world. How can that be simple?

This film is also relaxing, bringing the audience a lot of comedic moments. My watching experience in the film theatre was joyful: I laughed very hard with the middle-ages. The comedic elements softens the conflict of this film, making it unconventionally non-miserable. The music style, the visual effect, the camerawork, and even the way the main title “Simple comme Sylvain” is presented — on a billboard along the highway — show that the film is not totally serious. It’s not heavy, yet inspires us to think.

30 January 2024

[leam1983]

"The Nature of Love" - Thoughts

My uncle Roger (fictitious name, as always), is someone whom I'll stick with a long-deceased movie critic's first name as retirement's brought about a kind of informal career development. Namely, after working for the Feds up Quebec for several decades, he's turned into the type who emails us every single year's best movies, according to him.

Roger and his girlfriend Martha aren't exactly blockbuster types, except in a few rare instances. Most of everything they gush over's been selected at Cannes - and this year included Monia Chokri's The Nature of Love.

We follow Sophia (Magalie Lépine-Blondeau), a Postgrad lecturer in Philosophy who's the exact type I came to know all-too well, during my time at my old alma mater: a thesaurus on two legs, her head stuffed with theories on anything and everything, with a pseudo-informed opinion all packaged up and ready for five-to-seven dinners with colleagues that devolve into inebriated pontification. We realize that she's unhappy with her current partner, another Postgrad lecturer by the name of Xavier (Francis-William Rhéaume) with whom she loves geeking out, of course - but for whom she no longer manifests any sexual attraction.

Enters Sylvain Tremblay, played by Pierre-Yves Cardinal, the handyman Sophia and Xavier hire for sprucing up their lakeside cabin. Sylvain's pretty much every woodsy contractor you've ever met: he wears flannel, has a constant five o'clock shadow, drives a Ford F-150 and has family up in Buck Country, where it isn't uncommon to see even bigger Fords with rigged-up support bars, typically decorated by the antlers of the last buck they killed. Sylvain's brash, honest, stomps away and screams when his feelings get the better of him - and has a bit of a jealous streak. Sophia obviously falls for him, with the movie taking pains to ensure we see that Sophia and Sylvain make for a terriffic pair in bed.

Very early on, I was annoyed by the framing device of Sophia's lectures, seeing as she was seemingly spending an entire semester discussing love. She spends the movie flip-flopping between a man she has intellectual compatibility but no sex drive, and another man with whom her sex drive is turned up to eleven - at the expense of nearly everything else. Similarly, we see her addressing Plato's definition of love as opposed to Schopenhauer's, then followed by other contemporary philosophers - and the movie dovetails exactly the way I expected it to.

Sophia feels slighted by Sylvain's poorly-timed proposal and for his offering of an entry-level all-inclusive package in a resort, drops her newly-received engagement ring in his glove box, and is left on the roadside.

All the while, Walt gave me looks. He noted that halfway through the movie, I took five to go get my mouthguard. I grind my teeth when I'm annoyed and oh boy howdy, was I annoyed...

See, Quebec as a cultural basin has a thing that I've noticed, a yen for a particular archetype, as far as fictitious characters go: that of the Pretentiously Soul-Searching Intellectual. From Denys Arcand's earlier work and onwards, we've sort of gotten stuck on the idea that people can spend decades stuffing themselves with knowledge, without ever finding enough time to figure out what makes them happy. The end-result is that you have simpler, more self-accepting characters like Sylvain, with his Ford and his humbly scrounged-for Puerto Vallarta getaway, who actually have a sense of Self - and then there's characters like Sophia, or like Alexandre Landry's Pierre-Paul Daoust, in 2018's The Fall of the American Empire, who idolize intellectualism to an extreme, but who also end up with a critical dearth of happiness and of self-assertion, as a result.

I ended The Nature of Love thinking that Sophia (with her very ironic name, come to think of it) would be better served if she abandoned her dreams of tenure, booked herself with a therapist and maybe took a year or so to find herself whilst on a backpacking trip across Asia.

In a sense, she reminded me of myself. In my Postgrad years, I was surrrounded with man and woman-children who were set for the narrow, unforgiving and extremely limiting ranges of Academia, and who attended Thesis lectures in pajamas, stained tee-shirts and unkempt beards - and who took calls related to their fucking laundry being done by their parents whilst attempting to come across as snooty enough to maybe shoot for a doctorate in ten years or so. I've left a world where most of the people I interacted with could shit out memoirs on the Post-Democratic anxieties of our Post-Post-9/11 world while not knowing enough to screw a lightbulb on their own - and I entered a world where people have arguably far less lofty aspirations.

My bigger concern used to be whether or not the three pedants in my promotion would shit down my defending the idea that Lovecraft could've been a repressed gay man before it was a trendy theory, and Walt's is whether or not Honda Canada is going to sanction the new promotions the Sales Directors cooked up for dealerships surrounded by whistling pines and miles of empty highway.

I've left a world that keeps searching for love in the pages of men and women who are never seen as offering a simple and honest exhortation to get out there and love someone - and I've done just that. I don't give a shit if all S.T. Joshi is for Walt is a funny name on some of my old thesis notes - I've left that kind of pedantry behind.

[leblogdemarinaetjeanmarie]

SAMEDI 2 DECEMBRE 2023 (Billet 3 / 4)

« SIMPLE COMME SYLVAIN » (1h50)

Un film de Monia Chokri, avec Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Francis-William Rhéaume…

Beaucoup d’excellentes critiques, aussi bien du côté des « Pro » que des « Spectateurs » sur le Site « AlloCiné » et aussi, il y a peu, un avis très favorable de nos amis Cécile et Michel (B.). Du coup, nous y sommes allés hier après-midi… et nous avons été déçus.

Le premier tiers du film est excellent mais ensuite le scénario s’enlise, le ressort comique ou dramatique se répète, la caricature devient grossière, les personnages (même très bien joués) nous échappent, on ne les comprend plus… et la fin nous laisse sur notre faim !

Heureusement l’accent québécois donne du relief au film. Mais bon, le résultat n’est au final pas très intéressant. C’est « Bridget Jones » en plus « cul » mais en moins drôle !

Notre tort peut-être, nous avons vu ce film après « Testament » de Denys Arcand et comme on dit aujourd’hui, entre les deux, « Y-a vraiment pas photo ! ».

Nous lui avons donné tous les deux , ❤️❤️,5 sur 5 (c’est-à-dire, la petite moyenne).

[thomas-querqy]

Simple comme Sylvain réalisé par Monia Chokri, avec Magalie Lépine Blondeau, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Francis-William Rhéaume 😍😍

«Simple comme Sylvain» : D’amour et de philo