Living It Up
Lou Didn't Say No
-
Living It Up (Faire la fête)
Directed by Anne-Marie Miéville.
With Anne Alvaro, Didier Flammand, Hélène Lapiower.
France, 1987, digital video, color, 13 min.
French with English subtitles.
This short work captures intimate conversation in the midst of a festive crowd.
The idea for this film, and the source of its title, was born of a passage of correspondence between German poet Rainer Maria Rilke and his lover Lou Andréas-Salomé (who played significant roles in the lives of Nietzsche and Freud as well). Lou Didn’t Say No observes moments in the life of a contemporary couple. Lou (Bunel) is directing a film set in a museum while she holds down a day-job answering a lonely-hearts hotline; Pierre, her former lover, is a moody and passionate young actor who is seeing someone else. While Lou analytically explores a relationship based on friendship, Pierre regresses into fits of jealous violence. French critic Jean-Claude Guigue describes the film’s engagement with it’s subjects as “beyond the wounds, the war of the sexes, and time—the only thing that remains is the radiant beauty of things.”