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After the disappareance of her husband, Marie
(Charlotte Rampling) rekindles her sexual passion with
a new boyfriend (Jacques Nolot).
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In another summer season filled with action heroes saving the world from digitized dangers, Charlotte Rampling defies her self-imposed retirement and returns to movie theaters with her trademark sexual bravado intact. She is a refreshing change from all the cinematic testosterone that signifies most summer movies.
Writer/director François Ozon's Under the Sand is not at all like the typical summer movie. It's a coolly intelligent, deliberately told, adult drama about a middle-aged woman struggling to deal with the unexpected loss of her husband of 25 years.
Granted, summertime moviegoers have their share of starlets like Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon. Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones display their comic charms in America's Sweethearts. But none of these actresses can equal Rampling when it comes to bold sexuality. While these starlets giggle, Rampling smolders.
In Ozon's film, Marie (Rampling) and Jean (Bruno Cremer) have settled down into a comfortable marital routine. Their life together is based on familiar routines and expected outcomes. They share a cigarette and read quietly in bed, a life of domestic tranquillity. They have no children. Marie and Jean simply live for each other.
But Marie's life shatters during a trip to Jean's summer house. While she naps on a windswept French beach, heavy-set Jean goes for a swim and never returns. The lifeguards can't find a sign of him. His disappearance is a mystery.
Back in Paris, Marie refuses to accept Jean's absence. She still sees him in the shadows of their apartment. She picks out a tie for him at a local store. She refuses to accept the inevitable. She talks about Jean at dinner parties as if he were still alive. Even after dating a charming publisher (Jacques Nolot), who helps Marie rekindle her sexual passions, she can't help feeling that Jean is still part of her life.
"My relationship with Jean has always been my priority," Marie tells her date.
With Under the Sand, Ozon continues to be one of the brighter stars of the French Next Wave. Far removed from the comical antics found in his earlier films, Sitcom (1998) and Les Amants criminels (1999), Under the Sand reveals a knack for human drama and heartfelt emotions. Under the Sand is mature and assured in its storytelling. Its drama unfolds with a deliberate rhythm. While it displays plenty of photographic dazzle, Rampling's transcendent performance remains its highlight.
Rampling is no longer the starlet of Luchino Visconti's The Damned, Georgy Girl and Farewell My Lovely. At age 55, she truly shines in Under the Sand.
Her figure is still lithe, her eyes still silvery in color. Granted, Rampling's face is worn from the passage of time. But after a 36-year film career, the British-born actress still dazzles. Earlier this year, in Signs & Wonders, she played a woman who loses her husband to adultery. In Under the Sand, she delivers an even more intense performance as Marie, revealing the inner turmoil of a woman in a state of extreme emotional crisis.
Marie looks into the mirror and tugs at the creases below her eyes. She brushes her hair and applies cream to her wrinkles. It's a humanistic moment of silent drama. Nothing physically happens. Yet, inside Marie's soul, chaos is erupting.
Later, Marie lectures to her college class, reading from Virginia Woolf's The Waves. She remembers staring into the vast ocean, looking for a sign of her missing husband. It's clear her feelings of loss are becoming insurmountable.
Under the Sand builds its human drama around Marie's denial of her husband's disappearance. He's assumed dead. But the suspense in Under the Sand revolves around whether the despondent Marie will ever be able to accept her loss. In her eyes, one learns what it feels like to be suddenly alone.
Long swims at the neighborhood fitness club don't seem to ease her pain. Neither does a sloppy kiss from a male companion. While Marie fantasizes about being groped by two unseen male admirers, most of her dreams involve her missing husband.
The mystery surrounding Jean keeps the drama in Under the Sand moving briskly. As Marie's bouts of fantasy increase, you're never sure what will happen to her. Watching her talk to Jean over breakfast, Ozon leaves it up to audiences to decide whether the movie is practicing deception or dementia.
The emotional turmoil takes its toll on Marie. The creases beneath her eyes begin to darken. She grows impatient with friends' questions about Jean. A final visit between Marie and her mother-in-law unleashes a lifetime of bitterness.
"Was this your husband's office?" Marie's boyfriend asks.
"This is my husband's office!" Marie answers angrily.
Buoyed by her sexual frankness, Rampling is a modern-day Barbara Stanwyck for a moviegoing audience who has mostly forgotten who Stanwyck is.
Rampling is compelling throughout Under the Sand. She still looks stunning. But what's more important is her ability to deliver a credible performance of a women suffering an emotional breakdown. She is earthy, smart and wonderfully sensual. With Rampling, the bonus is that there is always something substantial beneath her beauty.
Whenever Rampling appears on-screen, my mind flashes back to her searing performance in The Night Porter (1974), playing a concentration camp survivor who undertakes a S&M; tryst with her Nazi torturer. I can still picture Rampling in her Nazi outfit, her leather-clad hands covering her bare breasts. Its overt sadomasochism aside, The Night Porter remains proof of Rampling's ability to tackle difficult roles with integrity.
Rampling's days as a late 1960s and early 1970s screen goddess are worth remembering. But Under the Sand proves that plenty of passion remains behind those silvery eyes.
CityBeat grade: A.
