Jaque Demy's Une Chambre En Ville: Behind the hornpipe and decomposing the disdain of tragedy and sexism
Jaque Demy's exhibit of inequality turns out to be a retold version of Romeo and Juliet which interrogates the sexual deportment over sentimentalism and the utterly patriarchal society. More alike to his previous work "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", and crossing the line to a soapy melodrama on vein with theatrical procedures.
In the 1980s no longer were tragic movies favored though, Demy released a tragedy causing criticism that wouldn't be as favorable as expected. The reason on my eyes is that a generation earlier TV had strongly reduced the audience of the cinemas however television didn't change the taste. Take a common situation. Some friends find themselves watching a film which may evoke strong emotions in some of the group. Suddenly someone catches the remote control, rewinds the movie and makes some random commentary or joke. Repeated exposure to experiences of this kind with such triviality may reduce the capacity for becoming emotionally aroused by what is being experienced (movies in this specific case). It is easy to name a list of 100 tragic movies produced 1920-1965, that were highly appreciated by the average film-goer in contrast with the new upcoming wave of blockbusters and pop corn films that arose over the general public during the 80s especially which started to focus on a more heroic and positive panorama.
Now as it was on the 1980s tragedy is overtaken by triviality, people watch a tragedy and laugh focusing on the most superficial elements, the underneath connotations and personal investment seems to be separated from art as the artist is separated from the piece of art as well. I mention this because if your aim is not emotional experience, you are likely to be disappointed by Demy's works and this one (A Room in Town) in particular. This opens the discourse over whether cinema should be emotional or detached, some claim that coming to cinema with an emotional approach is a bias statement thus opinion should be detached of emotion to lead path to "objectivity". However while the own definition of art is varied there's a common concept over it: that it serves as an expressionism of someone, we can differ over what might qualify as art and what wouldn't but undoubtedly every piece of art transmits something from the source it comes from (the artist).
"Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it. That art must give man hope and faith"
—Andrei Tarkovsky
"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way, things I had no words for.”
—Georgia O'Keeffe
“Every good painter paints what he is.”
— Jackson Pollock
Reading these as well as uncountable other more commentaries of people involved in the creation of art makes it evident that is impossible to separate the art from the artist and thus his/her vision, if the work is involving and expressionistic for the artist then we could say that what is claimed to be "objectivity" in art (or the closest to such) comes at hand with said vision thus is impossible to leave aside emotion and sentiment regarding a work.
'Une Chambre En Ville' (A Room in Town) is emotionally tacit and not manipulative (which is something I find misleading and fraudulent when a tragedy does such). The film never asks for pity or fails into an scathing victimization. In fact the main tragedy (the death of the lovers) seems like something minor in contrast to the revolt Demy brings to the table. The more this film unwraps itself the more it is displayed as the other side of the coin (but part of the same coin nonetheless) as Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The vivid and chromatic tones impregnated through the streets on previous works of Demy are replaced with a working town full of tension and shot in sombre tones; no prettily painted streets emptied of people and cars are displayed and for a generous amount of time, Demy shows us a proletarian Nantes of graffiti-scarred back alleys, barricaded works whose employees are out on strike and squares full of clutter, the very last composition of the film is a dazzling but mortifying and effectively harrowing montage that deliver the utterly unspoken tragedy of the story overall.
A Room In Town
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
And added to this we have of course the main plot concerning the two lovers Edith and François. Their love blossomed over a rush, in some ways it could be labeled as this "love at first sight" yet "forbidden affair" (which only accentuates the procedures over theatrical tragedy); their engagement is seen as morally wrong as both have a couple (either married like Edith or progressing on a relationship). At first I was afraid the film would end up as a mere turn to justify adultery but during the ending I realized Demy is rather creating and criticizing a construction of patriarchy: at first it seemed illogical (stupid and cheesy even) that Edith dies in the very eyes of her mother, she could have stop her suicide yet she allowed such action; however this is more of a symbolic than literal happening.
Think on the set up of circumstances, relations and characters Demy established: Madame Langlois (the mother of Edith) is a widow, born a baroness yet struggling to pay the rent, she is a mother but lacks any sense of authority and independence since the lost of her husband who let her in an unfavorable situation; her daughter is married to a ghoulish and greedy businesses man who knocks her daughter, yet she is incapable of supporting Edith to the point that when that man threatened to kill her daughter for being slutty (as Edmond calls her) Langlois didn't encourage her daughter to get separated from Edmond as she should have done a while ago, instead she encourages Edith to leave her affair so that she won't trigger her husband. Edith is a half-time prostitute as she looks for some money that her greedy husband refuses to give her, she is not only clobbered but completely overpowered and humiliated by her husband, and Edith only married Edmond because she had no chance to guarantee for herself an economically stable life without a husband.
This is not a mere theorization but is a depiction of patriarchy: a social system in which men hold the upper level, being the moral, social, political and of course economic authority; women are dependent of men while men are independent of women. With this basis the inequality among sexes goes rampant: a good wife is not the one that respects and loves her husband but someone who endures the physical and emotional misstreatment of him. A widow is not a self-capable individual but she needs to rent a room so that a young, working class and rebellious male rents her a room. Women in this film are always dependent on men, even Violette: she sees her life raising her unborn baby as impossible without the role of the male thus she was insisting of marriage despite François obvious lack of interest on her (he would reject a date with his girlfriend in order to spend some time with his comrades).
A key plot point to contemplate here is the suicide of Edmond (Edith's husband): as he becomes aggressive and starts threatening his wife, Edith takes a gun as a threat for him to calm down. However Edith never pulled the trigger as Edmond cuts his throat, but not because he was scared or hopeless under the lost of his wife. Notice his last words indicated that he wanted that Edith could never forget him. He used his suicide as another way of abusing his wife: creating a trauma so that she lives unhappy and with an emotional scar buried deep inside her. This is the same as a punch of a bully on the last day of high school or as a husband raping his wife so that she gets his stain impregnated on her with permanent ink before they divorce.
We could end up saying that the finale works on two thematic levels: first as a conclusion to this sporadic romance. I never felt anything for them nor rooted for this couple which made me end up with a mixed reaction at first. However, the more I think about it, the more I see it as a critique of sex against sentimentalism. The starter element of their relationship was sex, it is after it that they declared to be madly in love with each other and not vice versa (that's a scarce time of one night). We could say then that the sexual act itself was detached of sentimentalism at first, which can easily lead to state that they were more on a sexual than an emotional affair. Demy ends up condemning the mere existence of a bond based over trivial sexual endeavors as he states that it ends up as quickly as it starts, closing up in a tone of nothingness and as a rather devastating outcome. On my eyes something that emphasizes this point is that in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Demy also stated that to sex outside marriage, responsibility and straits all come at hand.
And secondly, as I suggested on the title of this brief essay this is what goes behind the hornpipe, behind the dance, behind the celebration and behind the mask. Sexism is a story of live it and repeat it; is an endless cycle. Edith kills herself after François died, she sees herself as hopeless without a man while her mother (the dependent widow) can't rise her head up for once and act by herself, she is representing the good wife but not the one that respects and loves her husband but the one that must keep her mouth shot when her husband abuses her and her daughter. It is not surprise that a lot of sexual abuses against children come from the own family, with several cases being the father one abusing or even worse raping his own kid and the mother condoning it, acting as blind or letting it go rampant. The fear over why the wife decides to kneel instead of standing up almost always proceeds from the same element: a social construction that foments the man becoming a feared authority by women instead of a beloved and caring one. Then is adequate and prophetic even that the movie opens and ends up with a riot, a situation as old time: society hasn't changed at all.