THE OLD LADY WHO WALKED IN THE SEA (Laurent Heynemann, 1991)

Jeanne Moreau, who won a best actress César for her sprightly, scrappy work as San-Antonio’s nefarious Lady M, is the main attraction of Laurent Heynemann’s La vieille qui marchait dans la mer, a mildly entertaining comedy that revolves around routine versus change in this aging grifter’s life. Dominique Roulet, grandson of film composer Maurice Jobert, and Heynemann wrote the jaunty script. As long as one doesn’t foolishly mistake Lady M for one of Moreau’s great roles (Moreau claimed one, that same year, as the blind mother in Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World), one may have a good time with this artless piece of entertainment. The touristy seaside locations count for something, too.
     Former lover Pompilius is Lady M’s partner-in-cons-and-thefts; meanwhile, Lady M is training young Lambert in their criminal activities—and making Pompilius jealous in the process. It is with scant depth that age yields to youth here, and one doesn’t know quite what to make of Lady M’s snipping off Lambert’s pony tail with this unconvincing explanation: “It doesn’t suit you.” Perhaps it is a mere assertion of dwindling power. Indeed, the film opens with Lady M’s pain-racked voiceover-in-prayer petitioning God to grant her the strength to continue.
     Moreau has her poignant moments, such as when, glitteringly attired, in the exquisite dark, Lady M tenderly addresses Lambert and shows him a series of old photographs of herself, thereby blurring the distinction between Moreau and her character, who in the latter’s younger days apparently shared, in light of Garbo’s, the second-most beautiful face in all of cinema.
     There are elements here, then, for a great work of postmodernism; but Heynemann’s film is too staid, too cautious, too infatuated with itself to get very far with them.