DVD Review: Alain Resnais Entices, Perplexes Again in ‘Wild Grass’

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CHICAGO – There’s a very good reason why casual moviegoers are weary of films purporting themselves to be avant-garde. Such a term seems to suggest that a level of effort is required from the audience to fully digest and enjoy a particular work of cinematic art. They are the opposite of disposable entertainments devoured by mainstream viewers like escapist munchies.

In fact, the word “munchies” functions prominently in the jaw-dropping, hotly debated final moment of “Wild Grass,” the latest film from 88-year-old master of cinema, Alain Resnais. The last thing on this filmmaker’s mind is box office results. His greatest wish is merely to inspire audience debate. His most well-known and influential efforts (1959’s “Hiroshima mon amour” and 1961’s “Last Year at Marienbad”) have proven that cinema has the potential to be as complex, as rich, and as widely open to interpretation as literature. He doesn’t care if you “get” his films by the end. He merely wants them to haunt your dreams.

DVD Rating: 2.5/5.0

One of the most intriguing things about a Resnais picture is the tendency of characters to join in the audience’s confusion and arguments over plot points. “Hiroshima” and “Marienbad” both center on couples reflecting on murky memories of the past, while correcting and contradicting each others’ interpretations. “Marienbad,” is a particularly spellbinding puzzle that invites a number of possible solutions, all of which are probable. Yet Resnais is less interested in the big picture than he is with the puzzle pieces themselves, utilizing them to illustrate how life consists of random moments that are only meaningful in and of themselves.

This belief has never been more clearly expressed than it is in “Wild Grass,” a film bound to bedazzle art house lovers while infuriating everyone else. It marks somewhat of a creative rebirth for Resnais, whose career meandered for decades before regaining traction in 2006’s exquisite ensemble drama, “Private Fears in Public Places.” Yet that picture bears no resemblance whatsoever to “Grass,” which proves that Resnais, an elderly giant of the French New Wave, still harbors a tireless energy when it comes to cinematic experimentation. From that angle, the film is exhilarating, but from nearly every other angle, “Grass” is a resounding miscalculation.

Wild Grass was released on DVD on Oct. 26, 2010.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Based Christian Gailly’s novel, “L’Incident,” the plot centers on two people who have absolutely no reason to want to be together. Marguerite (Sabine Azéma) is a dentist whose flaming red hair is as unruly as a tuft of grass growing through a crack in the road, the memorable image witnessed in the film’s opening shot. One bright and sunny day, Marguerite’s purse is snatched from her by a runaway thief. Her wallet is later found in a parking lot by Georges (André Dussollier), a morose man with graying hair, a dark past, and eyes that often narrow into a paranoid leer. He barely seems to realize that he’s married to the beautiful, young Suzanne (Anne Consigny). When he realizes that the owner of the wallet is a pilot (thus connecting with his love of aviation), he decides that a romance must unfold between the two of them. When Marguerite resists his invitation to meet, he begins to stalk her. When she refuses to play along with his lustful burst of whimsicality, he takes it personally. What a loathsome SOB. Why in god’s name would Marguerite be the least bit interested in this deranged creep? Georges is so detestable that he sabotages every attempt by Resnais to elicit genuine delight. Eric Gautier’s luminous, fluid cinematography suggests a mood akin to Luca Guadagnino’s “I Am Love,” but a better working title for this film would be, “I Am Lunacy.”

Sabine Azéma stars in Alain Resnais’s Wild Grass. Photo credit: Sony Pictures Classics

Speaking of lunacy, the film ends with a mind-bending cop-out that explains everything and nothing. After backing his characters into a corner, Resnais abandons them entirely, cutting to a delirious montage that ends with a completely unrelated, unexpected and confounding line of dialogue delivered by the young daughter of Marguerite’s friend, Josépha (Emmanuelle Devos). The line, which involves the phrase “cat munchies,” is a typically imaginative and irrational statement for a young child to utter. Of course, she’s no more imaginative or irrational than the surrounding adults.

There’s absolutely no reason why this brilliant mess of a movie should work at all. It’s frustrating, ridiculous and utterly unbelievable from one moment to the next. And I wouldn’t dream of discouraging you from seeing it anyway.

“Wild Grass” is presented in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and looks just ravishing on DVD, but sadly contains no enlightening extras. On the lone, six-minute special feature, production designer Jacques Saulnier briefly discusses his 48-year collaboration with the unseen Resnais. Unlike many French New Wave directors, Saulnier says that Resnais has always been interested in “using sets not just as work tools, but as a contribution to the script.” Viewers are offered a closer look at the elaborate, stunningly detailed set constructed for Georges and Marguerite’s initial meeting. It even includes tiny figures manually moved by crew members to create the illusion of faraway extras. There’s also passing glimpses at the designer’s multitudes of storyboards, as well as a trip behind the set’s plywood buildings. Saulnier claims that Resnais continues to surprise him with each new film, and likens him to a big brother who’s so smart, he “can’t be argued with.” Clearly, Saulnier will eat any amount of cat munchies that’s fed to him.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com