Not on the Lips
With Sabine Azema, Isabelle Nanty, Audrey Tautou, Pierre Arditi, Jalil Lespert, Daniel Prevost, Lambert Wilson, and Darry Cowl
In another eccentric move, Resnais has multiplied the asides delivered to the audience in the original operetta so that the characters address the camera in practically every scene. Ernst Lubitsch had Maurice Chevalier do this in the 1932 One Hour With You, but his hero was sharing a few of his private thoughts with the viewer. Here the effect is at times unsettling: nearly all of the characters have something to hide as well as something to brag about, and, as in a Wong Kar-wai film, each is briefly allowed to become a first-person narrator.
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Consider the odd opening of Not on the Lips, which follows an iris out on a gloved hand holding an invitation (“Madame Georges Valandray will receive guests at her home on Tuesday, October 20. Tea, port, bridge”). Moving in a corkscrewlike curve, the camera rises from a tray with a teapot, saucers, cups, and elegant pastries sitting on an oval table to high overhead views of three young women around the table, one of whom circles it in the opposite direction. All of them look up at the camera–and up toward the landing where they’re hoping Gilberte will appear–as they start to sing about their frustration that she hasn’t shown up for her own party. As the camera cuts to each of them singing separate lines, they start speculating that Gilberte might be late because she’s having an affair with Charley or poor, ugly Faradel–at which point Faradel enters, continuing the song and pointing out that he’s overheard them but doesn’t mind. As they politely take his gloves, top hat, overcoat, and bouquet of flowers, he commiserates with them about being stood up, invites them to pig out on the tea and macaroons, and advises them to hide their spite once Gilberte turns up. But when a doorbell rings he sends them off to an imaginary sale at a department store. Briefly alone before the arrival of Huguette, Faradel explains to the camera that he wanted to have Gilberte to himself.
Where: Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State
