Belle

Even if there is no biographic connection between Andre Delvaux and Belgian painter Paul Delvaux, there is at least two of the films in the inspiration of the extraordinary painter's work, and in both we find an extremely common theme in his paintings of trains and train stations. The first one is in the movie "Un soir,un train" (1968) and the second one in this film at minute 25:50 in Mathieu's incestuous dream

It's strange to review a title that after 15 years of IMDb had only one review by another user. Although the movie was in competition for the Palme d'Or in Cannes in the year it was released. André Delvaux was a director from Wallonia and is above all known in that part of Belgium and neighboring country France. Belle is lesser known than films like The Man Who Had His Hair Cut Short and Un Soir, un Train. Films that were released in the sixties when Delvaux started making movies with a deep surrealistic feel inspired by painter Paul Delvaux (no relation) although Belle also reminded me of the work of René Magritte. In fact this film is now so obscure that the only version I was able to watch was with Russian narrative over the French dialogues.

The protagonist is a professor of literature who studies the old stories of some barren regions of Wallonia. One day he hits what he believes is an animal with his car while he drives home in the night. The day after he returns to investigate and he meets a woman living in shack in the peat lands. The woman speaks a language not common to Gregoire (the professor) and it's not clear how she came living in such a remote country. Gregoire becomes totally obsessed with the woman he names Belle and neglects his career and his family. Then a man appears in the moors and throughout the film it stays vague what's his relationship with Belle. Is he her husband, a villain or even her pimp? When the man starts interrupting in Gregoire's normal live he decides to end the problem with violence and flee with Belle.

As said the movie has a surrealistic mood and the viewer is left with the question if the whole story was only a dream by Gregoire. His memories seem not to match reality and it is easy to imagine that his mind makes up an escape from his boring routines. Then there is a dream sequence where an incestuous interest from Gregoire for his daughter is showed. Although later in the film it is made clear that he is anything but happy about her forthcoming marriage nothing else is showed that indicates such an interest. Even Belle shows absolutely no resemblance to his daughter.

The film tries to balance on the thin cord of psychological drama, surrealistic thriller and sometimes even comedy. Mathieu Gregoire works his way through the film without ever having control over the events and it is not clear if he ever tries to solve the problems with his wife or that his friends or his family want to take any action in his movement. So if Belle is an intriguing movie the plot could have been worked out better, some of the characters could have portrayed better and also the acting is not always convincing.

A demanding director ,whose "un soir ,un train " should be considered an all-time classic, André Delvaux was a very educated person with a bizarre fondness for popular culture (Jean Ray's Harry Dickson and Louis Feuillade's Fantomas), some kind of Belgian Alain Resnais .

His works are not very accessible ,but there is a recurrent feature : the frontiers between dream and reality are blurred , chronology is flouted ."Belle " belongs to this strain ,the technique of which now running well ; like Mathias -in "Belle " it's Matthieu ,note the analogy- in "un soir ,un train" (Yves Montand) is a scholar who meets a girl he cannot communicate with verbally ;in the 1968 masterpiece ,it was a strange village where this linguistics professor was not able to understand a single word.

His life may be a prestigious one, but his lectures seem to meet mixed interest ,and it's certain that his relation with his wife (Danielle Delorme) has nothing to do with Louise Labé 's erotic poems from the sixteenth century ; thus,it's only natural he begins an affair with a long-haired girl ...or an attempt to mythologize his dull life through the creation of a fantasy world of romantic dreams : because Belle may be a fantasy , like "Elle" (Anna Karina) in "rendez-vous à Bray "(1971);both women are mysterious , they live in landscapes which recall paintings (nobody films the trees like Delvaux).It must be said that shots of Mathias in his bed ,often sleepless , follow the scenes with Belle.

Delvaux 's fascination for the trains ,present in both precedent work, resurfaces in the nighmare scene ;the cold colors -dominant dark blue- of the streets and of the station platform sharply contrast with the warm gold of the fields where the dream girl runs.

This Andre Delvaux film concerns an apparently happily married archivist who finds a mysterious woman in an abandoned farmhouse one day and enters into a passionate affair with her. Set in and near the Walloon "Fagnes," an ancient forest in Eastern Belgium, Delvaux successfully taps into an almost myth-like atmosphere as Mathieu, the meek archivist, is suddenly awakened by passion into an increasingly sinister double-life. It's a story Maeterlinck (author of Pelleas and Melisande, which became the libretto for Debussy's glorious opera) would have loved. The music, by Devreese, is appropriately haunting. The ending will leave you hanging, but in a splendid state of "aporia."