Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: a love triangle directed by Anne Fontaine.
It was after seeing them side by side during the César ceremony that François Truffaut decided to direct Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant (his partner at the time) as passionate lovers in The Woman Next Door, released in 1981.
This legendary cinema duo then met twice as husband and wife: first in 1994 in Le Colonel Chabert by Yves Angelo, then in 2003 in Nathalie… by Anne Fontaine.
In this film, Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant form more precisely a trio, sentimental and sensual, with Emmanuelle Béart. The latter plays the title role: a prostitute paid by Catherine, the character played by Fanny Ardant, to sleep with her husband and tell him everything in detail.
As she had done in her previous feature films (Love Stories End Badly… in General and Dry Cleaning), Anne Fontaine continues to explore the loving trio, focusing more particularly here on the ambiguous complicity which takes place between two completely opposite women – the married bourgeoisie and the prostitute – through the erotic and dramatic power of words.
Note that the film was the subject of an American remake, Chloé, directed by Atom Egoyan in 2009. Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried reprise the main roles.
Nathalie… by Anne Fontaine with Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, Gérard Depardieu…
Tonight on Arte at 8:55 p.m.