MELO (Alain Resnais, 1986)

For Alain Resnais, making a film that unfolds in time in a simple forward direction is an “experiment”! Mélo, from Henri Bernstein’s play, mines Resnais’s signature theme, past haunting the present and thus helping to determine future, but without constructing an intricately edited mosaic of different time elements; and in this instance the situation developing this theme seems uncomfortably conventional: a married woman’s adultery with a friend of her husband and the guilt this engenders, finally driving her to commit suicide. Conventional plot, conventional treatment; can we call this Resnais?
     Yes; and despite the fact that it’s widely considered one of Resnais’s lesser works, Mélo may be as good an index of his filmmaking brilliance as any other Resnais film.
     In 1926, a dinner at a couple’s home; the host and hostess entertain one guest: the host’s friend, a violinist who has a concert career while the host toils modestly in an orchestra and gives lessons on the side. But Pierre has one thing that Marcel doesn’t: Romaine (Sabine Azéma, best actress César). At least until tomorrow. As the friends talk, the camera records something extraordinary: the new couple, Marcel and Romaine, gradually taking shape from the clay of the married couple and their guest, with the host none the wiser. It simply occurs, with only a minimum of subtle flirting on Romaine’s part, and a corresponding bit of vacant loneliness on Marcel’s part, in the direction of the eventual outcome; our seeing this almost entirely innocent process (as innocent as anything human can possibly be) neuters any inclination we may have to pass judgments, thereby enlarging our capacity to take in the outcome’s generalities and particulars. Moreover, while compositions stress the connectedness of the trio, the camera moves to isolate Marcel, enrobing him in the darkness of the failed romantic past he seems fixated on, to suggest the possibility of his upcoming betrayal of Pierre. It is Romaine, however, whose guilt will prove the most corrosive—and, in an odd way, Pierre’s, whose subsequent illness reflects the double betrayal, by spouse and friend, that he doesn’t quite know about but also, unconsciously at least, doesn’t quite not know about. Pierre is heartsick, and Romaine may be trying to bring things to some fort of conclusion by poisoning him on the side.
     Despite what you might have read, this is a great film. Its title, incidentally, reflects the melodramatic genre to which the plot belongs—and more: especially on the twin axes of past and present and openness and deceit, Mélo explores the line along which marriage and adultery themselves conform to the nature of melodrama.
     Early on, Marcel muses about “the joy of long ago.” He is lying, or he is whistling in the dark.

GONE BABY GONE (Ben Affleck, 2007)

Casey Affleck, as reliably a good actor as brother Ben is not, stars as Patrick Kenzie, a South Boston private detective investigating the disappearance of 4-year-old Amanda McCready, along with his (in every sense) partner, Angie Gennaro. Like Clint Eastwood’s misanthropic Mystic River (2003), Gone Baby Gone is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane; first-timer Ben Affleck directs from a script by himself and Aaron Stockard. As with Eastwood’s monstrosity, the story is preposterous, full of contrived twists, turns and backtracks, and pseudo-psychological. Human nature apparently isn’t an interest on Lehane’s plate.
     In the year of the dumbest thriller ever made, David Fincher’s Zodiac, however, Affleck’s film looks pretty sharp by comparison. The best acting comes from Morgan Freeman as police captain Jack Doyle of the missing-children division, whose early retirement is forced by the disastrous outcome of the McCready case. Beneath his mask of self-righteousness, Doyle is morally warped by the intolerable burden of the violent long-ago loss of his own child. This is one of those contrived roles that requires the character itself to be an unlikely good actor, and the contrivance keeps Freeman from giving an authentic performance; but what Freeman is able to do with the role mesmerizes.
     The ending thoughtfully presents a psychosocial conundrum. Passing no judgment but inspiring consideration, the convoluted mystery’s upshot is remarkable. En route to it, though, most of the shots are “off” and inarticulate. Filmmaker Affleck is not quite competent yet.
     His is a trickier, even more muddled thriller than Michael Clayton (also 2007), and also a messier because more humane one. Tony Gilroy’s film is mildly intriguing, mildly suspenseful; Gone Baby Gone, by contrast, burns with suspense.
     Considerable mumbling by actors, and the accents, caused me to miss one-third of the dialogue.