Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2005 3:41 pm
The Winter 2002-03 issue of Film Quarterly (Volume 56 #2) contains my rather length analysis of Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train
Directed and co-scripted Patrice Chereau this 1998 release deals with a funeral and its aftermath. The enormous Super-Altman cast is headed by Jean-Louis Trintignant in what as a result of the murder of his daughter Marie will be his final performance. It's his valedictory. He plays a famous painter named Emmerich AND his identical twin brother. The painter (seen only in brief silent flashbacks, but heard on a tape recording that plays at various points in the action) has died of a heart attack and his enormous extended family of boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-boyfriends of ex-boyfriends and blood relatives has assembled to ride the train from Paris to Limoges where he is to be buried in the family plot. Among the riders are his principle ex Francois (Pascale Greggory) who is breaking up with his current boyfriend Louis (Bruno Todeschini) who in the course of the action falls in love with a hustler (Sylvain Jacques) who unbeknownst to him has already had an affair with Francois. Then there's the infernal couple of Jean-Marie (Charles Berling) and Claire (Valerie Bruni-Tedeschi)
Both are drug addicts, but she's decided to quit -- which has given him cause to leave her. he still loves her however. But the trip is giving him a chance to confront his father (Trintignant as the live straight twin) who he never liked as much as his gay uncle.Then theire's Thierry (Roschody Zem) another addict who was the dead man's nurse and lover in his final years. "I got him his smack! He wated to die in my arms!" he yells at the others. His wife (Dominique Blanc) is also on board as is his daughter (Dephine Schlitz) who the dead man - in an act of overwhelming perversity - has left his entire inheritance. Finally there's Vivianne (Vincent Perez) a pre-op transsexual who may or may not have been the deceased's son. It's one Big Scene after another with overlapping stores and dialogue plus music on a busy soundtrack that includes everything from Bjork to Mahler to Jeff Buckley to "Save the Last Dance For Me."
A grand summation of "The Way We Live Now"," Chereau's film has a vitality and power that's literally overwhelming. It makes almost eerything else in the cinema seem anemic and gutless.
The story, BTW, proceeds from real life. Co-scripter Daniele Thompson was a close friend of Francois Reichenbach, the documentary filmmaker (Artur Rubinstein -- Love of Life, Medicine Ball Caravan, L'Amerique Insolite, and Welles collaborator on F For Fake) who was also a gay bon vivant and part of George Platt Lynnes set. When she went to visit him in the hospital where he was dying of AIDS, Reichenbach planned his funeral, saying he wanted to be buried in the family plot in Limoges. It was at this moment Thompson realized her old friend was really and truly going to die. She tried to make a joke of it. "Limoges? Oh but Francois all your friends are in Paris. Limoges is too far" -- to which he replied "Those who love me can take the train."
Patrice Chereau's other films include L'Homme Blesse and Queen Margot. His latest, Gabrielle, has been making the festival rounds. He is one of the world's greatest directors of opera. His production of Wagner's Ring cycle (available on DVD) changed the way the work was viewed for a new generation when it premiered at Bayreuth in the late 70's. When I was in France in 1983 I was lucky enough to catch a performance of his production of Genet's The Screens with Maria Casares, Hermione Karagheuz, Pierre Malet and Deavid Bennent.
He also acts.
Directed and co-scripted Patrice Chereau this 1998 release deals with a funeral and its aftermath. The enormous Super-Altman cast is headed by Jean-Louis Trintignant in what as a result of the murder of his daughter Marie will be his final performance. It's his valedictory. He plays a famous painter named Emmerich AND his identical twin brother. The painter (seen only in brief silent flashbacks, but heard on a tape recording that plays at various points in the action) has died of a heart attack and his enormous extended family of boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-boyfriends of ex-boyfriends and blood relatives has assembled to ride the train from Paris to Limoges where he is to be buried in the family plot. Among the riders are his principle ex Francois (Pascale Greggory) who is breaking up with his current boyfriend Louis (Bruno Todeschini) who in the course of the action falls in love with a hustler (Sylvain Jacques) who unbeknownst to him has already had an affair with Francois. Then there's the infernal couple of Jean-Marie (Charles Berling) and Claire (Valerie Bruni-Tedeschi)
Both are drug addicts, but she's decided to quit -- which has given him cause to leave her. he still loves her however. But the trip is giving him a chance to confront his father (Trintignant as the live straight twin) who he never liked as much as his gay uncle.Then theire's Thierry (Roschody Zem) another addict who was the dead man's nurse and lover in his final years. "I got him his smack! He wated to die in my arms!" he yells at the others. His wife (Dominique Blanc) is also on board as is his daughter (Dephine Schlitz) who the dead man - in an act of overwhelming perversity - has left his entire inheritance. Finally there's Vivianne (Vincent Perez) a pre-op transsexual who may or may not have been the deceased's son. It's one Big Scene after another with overlapping stores and dialogue plus music on a busy soundtrack that includes everything from Bjork to Mahler to Jeff Buckley to "Save the Last Dance For Me."
A grand summation of "The Way We Live Now"," Chereau's film has a vitality and power that's literally overwhelming. It makes almost eerything else in the cinema seem anemic and gutless.
The story, BTW, proceeds from real life. Co-scripter Daniele Thompson was a close friend of Francois Reichenbach, the documentary filmmaker (Artur Rubinstein -- Love of Life, Medicine Ball Caravan, L'Amerique Insolite, and Welles collaborator on F For Fake) who was also a gay bon vivant and part of George Platt Lynnes set. When she went to visit him in the hospital where he was dying of AIDS, Reichenbach planned his funeral, saying he wanted to be buried in the family plot in Limoges. It was at this moment Thompson realized her old friend was really and truly going to die. She tried to make a joke of it. "Limoges? Oh but Francois all your friends are in Paris. Limoges is too far" -- to which he replied "Those who love me can take the train."
Patrice Chereau's other films include L'Homme Blesse and Queen Margot. His latest, Gabrielle, has been making the festival rounds. He is one of the world's greatest directors of opera. His production of Wagner's Ring cycle (available on DVD) changed the way the work was viewed for a new generation when it premiered at Bayreuth in the late 70's. When I was in France in 1983 I was lucky enough to catch a performance of his production of Genet's The Screens with Maria Casares, Hermione Karagheuz, Pierre Malet and Deavid Bennent.
He also acts.