Les herbes folles (Wild Grass)

Reviewed by Marc Glassman

Les herbes folles (Wild Grass)
Alain Resnais, director
Alex Reval & Laurent Herbiet, script based on the novel L’incident by Christian Gailly
Starring: Sabine Azema (Marguerite Muir), Andre Bussollier (Georges Palet), Anne Consigny (Suzanne, George’s wife), Emmanuelle Devos (Josepha), Mathieu Amalric (Officer Bernard de Bordeaux), Michel Vuillermoz (Officer Lucien D’Orange), Edouard Baer (narrator)

Talk about Zoomers: how many directors get to make films when they’re 87? While the Portuguese auteur Manuel de Oliveira is the champ, still directing at the age of 101, Alain Resnais isn’t that far behind. In 1959, he won an award at the Cannes Film Festival for his first feature, the legendary meditation on love, memory and the atomic bomb Hiroshima Mon Amour. Fifty years later, Les herbes folles prompted another award at Cannes for Resnais’ “lifetime achievements.”

Ever inventive, the octogenarian director still loves to change the emotional tone of a scene and relishes the opportunity to use unique shots and camera movements. Resnais has always loved writers, starting with Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet, so it’s no surprise that he was inspired by the whimsical prose of Christian Gailly in creating Les herbes folles. And it’s a measure of the film’s success that it was nominated for four Cesar Awards, though it didn’t garner one win in the French equivalent of the Oscars.

Les herbes folles is a tribute to the stubborn, unexpected and inevitable path of love. It’s also a tribute to “wild grass,” the kind that grows in a crack of pavement or in an outdoor wall. Truly, this is a film that insists on the strange nature of eros and romance.

Marguerite Muir, a fifty-something dentist, has her handbag stolen in a mall. Georges Palet, also in his fifties and purportedly happily married, finds Marguerite’s wallet—without money---and realizes that he should return it to her via the police. Worried that the cops might find out about his own shady past (which is never explained in detail), Georges has a bizarre, at cross purposes exchange with Officer Bernard de Bordeaux when he finally builds up enough nerve to bring it to them.

Having handed over the wallet, Georges develops a fantasy that Marguerite will meet him to express her gratitude--and perhaps embrace him. Annoyed by Georges’ attention towards her when she refuses to meet him, Marguerite asks the police to warn him off. They do so in another strange scene that involves Georges being forced to get off the roof where he’s doing repairs and bursting into an inappropriate temper tantrum against “les flics” at another point.

Eventually—and unprompted—Marguerite changes her mind and does decide to meet Georges. And they fall in love—sort-of. Which doesn’t stop Suzanne, George’s wife and Josepha, Marguerite’s best friend—and also a dentist—from getting involved in the new love relationship.

Did I mention that Marguerite is also an airplane pilot? And that Georges feels impelled to see the old William Holden film The Bridges at Toko-Ri at one point? Resnais’ film is one quirky event after another.

You can hardly accuse Alain Resnais of going conservative in his old age. Les herbes folles is certainly wild. But its odd sensibility won’t attract many North Americans. This is a film that only real Resnais buffs will truly enjoy.