The Nature of Love is a film that revisits the theme of binaries in every aspect possible. First, the contrasts of love, such as the short-lived passion versus enduring companionship, vs beauty versus, and sophistication versus mess, all of them are opposing to every principal aspect within the story. The plot itself involves Sophia (Magalie Lépine Blondeau), a woman whose ordinary life gets thrown off balance when she meets Sylvain (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) who is such a menace that he puts her long time relationship in jeopardy.
The most important question, which the film tries to answer, is perhaps the questions of old age, whether fidelity and commitment is a dream or can actually be created in the real world. Just like in a good mystery novel, as every page keep unfolding, rather as every layer leave, the choices we are confronted with are tracked towards an ascending complexity. The emergence of this territory of binary oppositions categorizes every shade of experience into black or white, unlike the processes of life that are characterized by gradual transitions. This makes it an interesting yet, a not so realistic, way of making a movie, though it can be tolerable at times. Depending on how much you appreciate realism, it can be the most interesting movie and the most annoying film at the same time.
In this regard, Sophia is the focus of the story, a source of support even with all the chaos surrounding her. She’s smart and sophisticated 40-year-old school teacher who has much stability at first. But then comes Sylvain the contractor who works on her holiday cabin and everything is different as she involves herself in a romantic relationship with him. And he is, as one could expect, quite the contrary to her – a manual laborer, country living, a lexis that contains just enough acceptable terms to adjust to their environment. One of the emphases of the narrative is on these differences. Sometimes they are strained as it is expected, other times their advantages are shown & sometimes they just backfire.
Sophia starts to feel the disparity of life in an embrace as there are so intense peaks and bases now. Because she and Sylvain have fun while other times they argue and don’t see each other. She is less restrained and more hairy and messy and slovenly when she is with him than she has been in her previous relationship of ten years. While she is trying to change the way he dresses and talks in order for him to fit into her world. Sadly for her, it works the other way round, and Sylvain is quite more effective in his endeavors.
Due to the high level of emotions shown and the stylistic choices (to be analyzed later), The Nature of Love seems to be a kind of daydream one can indulge in while trapped in a boring marriage. Simplifying characters down to stereotypes, makes it easier to shape them however you want. No, once again, this is not what several may call realist, but it fulfills the purpose of a daydream – giving the audience the possibility to imagine their own lives inside the outline put in front of them.
Because the relationship of Sophia and Sylvain is so central in the story, it follows that warring forces that come with it, and the first and foremost of the lot is the beauty vs intelligence. These divide the class, divides also fall in the beauty vs intelligence, in particular. There is a whole lot of emphasis placed on the intelligence-to-beauty ratio of most of the women in this story and like some idiots most men suffer from that malady in reverse. However, there is also a rather pronounced inner veneration for women who are much more make-up centric than the common average irritably exclaims, “At least for once [Sylvain’s] not with a sex symbol.”
While Sophia is not very pretty compared to other girls Sylvain dated, in Fletcher’s world, Sylvain does not measure up to her expectations of intelligence. He speaks in street terms, names out people Sofia perceives as unworthy, and most times puts on gaudy dresses which are quite different from her usual dull beige and brown colors. In essence, for him, his looks are so “fine” even if he doesn’t dress up well or modes well because his charms are enough. When he shows up at this dinner with sophia’s friends in a bright blue shirt, one of them says to Sophia that it does not really matter because the man is very good looking.
It is these extremes in the two people that propel the action forward in each new relationship. Their feelings are always to the extremes be it love or hate. In the compulsive and engaging world of Hollywood one more film returns that tells the story of people from different social strata separating or coming together. It’s hard to see why Sophia objects to Sylvain’s manner of speaking, which is quite standard, beautiful even. The problem may indeed be that the intricacies of this character’s way of speaking have been lost in translation from French to English.
They have also taken a lot of convincing arguments offered in the course of blue-or-gray philosophy with some artistic criticism which as it were seems to point to its undesirability. Secondly, the kernel of the picture revolves around nothing but the tired and disgusting parts of contemporaneous art: ‘only the ugly ones are smart, all the pretty faces are dumb and base’. Thirdly and finally, whilst it works, an issue is created whereby the options are presented like two extremes with no middle ground; which works. Fourthly and even more interestingly While we are not obliged to sympathize with the opinion of the characters, and the things they say, the film would not have been made devoid of its binary nature. Thus we have to take some amount of the nonsense in as to explain whatever it is we are looking at.
The Nature of Love has stunning pictorials and here, appreciation goes to all those who are behind the lens for the hard work put in. Such as the writer and director, Monia Chokri, the cinematographer André Turpin, and the production designer, Colombe Raby. It is not only the efforts of these creative individuals, which is complemented by many others, that helps build a rich, unusual and warm atmosphere. The visuals are reminiscent of a cozy summer blanket needed to ward off the Canadian cold in which the tale is set, splattered with stunning scenery, warm hues and elegant decor. With these at play, it’s not hard to comprehend why Sophia jumps into the sea of life with Sylvain.
Turning to the cons of the visual style, the edges go overboard in certain instances in the film where the images presented and the symbols seem to be too much. From the very cold distance maintained by sophia and her husband in their separate beds at the beginning of the film, to sophia buying a collar with a leash for her and sylvain to wear in their bedroom – these items are many times just as clumsy as ordinary dialogues and more so actual dialogues, maybe even more than actual dialogues. Such image reproducing narratives simply tell the plot and may still be appropriate in some narratives, here it was a bit excessive.
This drama has a few redeeming values but continues to be let down by the proliferation, and the excesses, of the very themes, ideas, and imagery it seeks to invest in. It doesn’t matter which part one focuses on, there is always the feeling that we have been taken a step too far – every exercise has been over overdone, instead of letting the audience do some of the legwork, everything has been *-fed to us. Because of this problem, however, it seems that the movie would have been more effective as a short: give the same message within the shortest time possible so that one cannot waste time beating around the bush.
Chokri, in her tanbil ko chandra manages to approach a relatively modern topic of love but does not relates it with practical life. At its best, it is simply irritating and leads to over thinking, at its worst, it is just flat out irritating. The Nature of Love is an incomplete film. Well, and in the end , that is a point, a point where everything comes in film. But that certainly does not lend itself to the most pleasant viewing experience.
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