(2006; French) Alain Resnais directed this compilation of incongruous splices of lives based on British dramatist Alan Ayckbourn's dark comedy. Things are not what they seem.

During an unusual snowstorm in Paris, snowflakes falling steadily for most of a week (bringing to mind Conrad Aiken's short story "Silent Snow, Secret Snow") without the city coming to a standstill (in a late scene inside a room snowflakes inexplicably begin to cover a couple's clasped hands resting on a table), several people's lives come into contact, resulting in subtle changes in their lives. One might call it the snowflake (or butterfly) phenomenon, the accretion of many small changes having a multiplier effect.

Real-estate agent Thierry (André Dussollier) and his office colleague, Charlotte (Sabine Azéma), know one another only superficially until she offers him a videotape of her favorite religious-music program. He (looking to be about 60) lives with his sister Gaëlle (Isabelle Carré), a gorgeous blonde (looking no more than 30, if that) trying to find a date with advertisements in the newspaper. Thierry has been showing his client Nicole (Laura Morante) two-room flats, though she has repeatedly told him she needs three rooms for herself and her fiancé, Dan (Lambert Wilson).

Dan, formerly a career soldier forced out of the military six months earlier, is a regular patron (rather than looking for employment) of an elegant bistro where Lionel (Pierre Arditi) tends bar. In the evenings while Lionel is at work, Charlotte has become a temporary caretaker for his bedridden father, Arthur, who hurls food, crockery, and insults ("ape," "rotten old trout," "fish-face") at her, demanding someone with tits and ass. In tears Charlotte resorts to reading her Bible after Arthur has fallen asleep, each time assuring Lionel upon his return that all has gone well.

While preparing his meal, Thierry watches intermittently the videotape Charlotte has given him, skipping through most of the hymns and cant by celebrities attesting to how these songs inspired their spiritual awakening, until the end of the program when a seductive scene appears of a woman shown below the neck dancing suggestively.

What's wrong with this picture? Nicole, who has a job, is looking for a three-room flat on her own, while Dan drinks or sleeps, because he wants a study for himself. Though he regularly seeks Lionel's company at the bar, Dan says to Lionel that men need to be alone while women require company. After listening to Dan's torrent of complaints, Lionel, who is a widower, suggests that Dan pull back from Nicole, at least temporarily, and try seeing other women. At the same time Nicole has arrived at the same decision to separate, telling Dan to get out of her apartment.

Moving into the hotel above the bistro, he makes an appointment to meet a woman from a newspaper ad. Upset with her brother, whom she found watching a porno tape, Gaëlle finally has a date show up. Calling herself Sophia, she tells Martin how handsome he looks (though Dan isn't good looking) and eagerly agrees to another date the following day. Before Gaëlle gets to the bistro, Nicole finds Dan there, with flowers for Sophia, telling him she wants to part from him for good but on amicable terms.

Elsewhere Thierry accepts a second tape from Charlotte, having told her how much he appreciated the first, skipping through the songs to the end, which is similar to the first, if not more risqué. At the office, trying to ascertain if she understands his feelings for her - "You have a lovely smile," he suddenly kisses her passionately, receiving opprobrium in return. The following day after apologizing profusely to Charlotte, fearing she might report the incident as sexual harassment, he's rewarded with a third tape, a peace offering of Christian good will and forgiveness, which he races home to watch.

Frustrated with her inability to remonstrate with Arthur's implacable behavior, knowing that his heart condition may not stand excessive excitement, she gives him what he's been asking for, a performance from which he never recovers. Toward Lionel, who opens up, carefully pouring out his life story as if serving Charlotte small glasses of wine, telling her how when he was fifteen his father left him and his mother (whom he regarded as an extraordinary person with whom he lived until she died three years earlier) - expelled actually - until Arthur became ill in need of his attention, Charlotte develops a deepening affection. However, Lionel expresses ambivalence about the Bible (though she says the New Testament offers forgiveness) and a lack of belief in God or hell; to which Charlotte says: "If hellfire exists, it's burning within us … consuming us," before handing him one of her tapes.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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