Pitkä poissaolo / Gengångaren [title on print] / En man kom tillbaka. FR/IT 1961. PC: Procinex / Société Cinématographique Lyre - Galatea Film. D: Henri Colpi. SC: Marguerite Duras, Gérard Jarlot. DP: Marcel Weiss - b&w - Dyaliscope 2,35:1. M: Georges Delerue. "Trois petites notes de musique" (comp. Georges Delerue, lyrics Henri Colpi) perf. Cora Vaucaire. Three opera arias ("Ecco ridente in cielo", "Una furtiva lagrima", etc.). AD: Maurice Colasson. ED: Jasmine Chasney, Jacqueline Meppiel. Cast: Alida Valli (Thérèse Langlois), Georges Wilson (the tramp), Charles Blavette (Fernand), Amédée (Marcel Langlois). 85 min. A Suomi-Filmi 1962 release print with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Darling Alfthan / Maya Vanni viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (50 Years Ago), 10 Aug 2011.
Revisited Henri Colpi's serene, compelling film based on an original Marguerite Duras screenplay. With this film Colpi shared the Palme d'Or in Cannes 50 years ago together with Luis Buñuel's Viridiana, but Une aussi longue absence is not as well remembered as it would deserve to be.
Thérèse (Alida Valli) is a café-owner in a suburb of Paris. A tramp (Georges Wilson) passes by mumbling fragments of opera arias. The tramp has lost his memory and identity in WWII in Germany. Thérèse starts to believe he is her husband Albert, lost in the war, although nothing supports it and nobody confirms it, on the contrary (the height is different, the colour of the eyes is different... ). Thérèse has not remarried but he has a nice boyfriend, a truck driver, whom she now discards.
The film is the story of Thérèse's attempt to revive forgotten memories. She visits the tramp's clochard-like shack by the Seine. The tramp is no alcoholic, though, but a gentle soul. She invites him to drinks, to leaf through old magazines, to a discussion with relatives about things that happened 16 years ago (torture... Angers... Gestapo... Fresnes... 14.7.1944... déporté... ). She invites him to dinner, to listen to opera arias, to dance to the wistful theme waltz "Trois petites notes de musique". During the dance Thérèse feels a long scar in the tramp's head. This should be the peripeteia, the fatal recognition that becomes a turning-point. The rational Thérèse must realize that the tramp's brain has been damaged beyond recovery. When the tramp escapes Thérèse and her neigbours on the square, he acts like a fugitive wanted by the enemy, holding his hands up. But against reason Thérèse persuades herself that the tramp must return in the winter. "Il faut attendre l'hiver".
Thérèse and the tramp are both psychological war invalids. Une aussi longue absence is a strong companion piece to Hiroshima mon amour. More generally, it is about the persistence of traumatic memories and about livsløgn (Ibsen's term about fundamental self-deception, the whole life based on a lie).
The magisterial black and white scope cinematography is lucid in the same way as in Alain Resnais' L'Année dernière à Marienbad. The brilliant vintage print conveys this perfectly.
This time I realized that Une aussi longue absence has one of my all-time favourite theme songs. The lyrics to "Trois petites notes de musique" are beyond the jump break:
TROIS PETITES NOTES DE MUSIQUE (Henri Colpi)
Trois petites notes de musique
Ont plié boutique
Au creux du souvenir
C'en est fini de leur tapage
Elles tournent la page
Et vont s'endormir
Mais un jour sans crier gare
Elles vous reviennent en mémoire
Toi, tu voulais oublier
Un p'tit air galvaudé
Dans les rues de l'été
Toi, tu n'oublieras jamais
Une rue, un été
Une fille qui fredonnait
La, la, la, la, je vous aime
Chantait la rengaine
La, la, mon amour
Des paroles sans rien de sublime
Pourvu que la rime
Amène toujours
Une romance de vacances
Qui lancinante vous relance
Vrai, elle était si jolie
Si fraîche épanouie
Et tu ne l'as pas cueillie
Vrai, pour son premier frisson
Elle t'offrait une chanson
A prendre à l'unisson
La, la, la, la, tout rêve
Rime avec s'achève
Le tien n'rime à rien
Fini avant qu'il commence
Le temps d'une danse
L'espace d'un refrain
Trois petites notes de musique
Qui vous font la nique
Du fond des souvenirs
Lèvent un cruel rideau de scène
Sur mille et une peines
Qui n'veulent pas mourir
Revisited Henri Colpi's serene, compelling film based on an original Marguerite Duras screenplay. With this film Colpi shared the Palme d'Or in Cannes 50 years ago together with Luis Buñuel's Viridiana, but Une aussi longue absence is not as well remembered as it would deserve to be.
Thérèse (Alida Valli) is a café-owner in a suburb of Paris. A tramp (Georges Wilson) passes by mumbling fragments of opera arias. The tramp has lost his memory and identity in WWII in Germany. Thérèse starts to believe he is her husband Albert, lost in the war, although nothing supports it and nobody confirms it, on the contrary (the height is different, the colour of the eyes is different... ). Thérèse has not remarried but he has a nice boyfriend, a truck driver, whom she now discards.
The film is the story of Thérèse's attempt to revive forgotten memories. She visits the tramp's clochard-like shack by the Seine. The tramp is no alcoholic, though, but a gentle soul. She invites him to drinks, to leaf through old magazines, to a discussion with relatives about things that happened 16 years ago (torture... Angers... Gestapo... Fresnes... 14.7.1944... déporté... ). She invites him to dinner, to listen to opera arias, to dance to the wistful theme waltz "Trois petites notes de musique". During the dance Thérèse feels a long scar in the tramp's head. This should be the peripeteia, the fatal recognition that becomes a turning-point. The rational Thérèse must realize that the tramp's brain has been damaged beyond recovery. When the tramp escapes Thérèse and her neigbours on the square, he acts like a fugitive wanted by the enemy, holding his hands up. But against reason Thérèse persuades herself that the tramp must return in the winter. "Il faut attendre l'hiver".
Thérèse and the tramp are both psychological war invalids. Une aussi longue absence is a strong companion piece to Hiroshima mon amour. More generally, it is about the persistence of traumatic memories and about livsløgn (Ibsen's term about fundamental self-deception, the whole life based on a lie).
The magisterial black and white scope cinematography is lucid in the same way as in Alain Resnais' L'Année dernière à Marienbad. The brilliant vintage print conveys this perfectly.
This time I realized that Une aussi longue absence has one of my all-time favourite theme songs. The lyrics to "Trois petites notes de musique" are beyond the jump break:
TROIS PETITES NOTES DE MUSIQUE (Henri Colpi)
Trois petites notes de musique
Ont plié boutique
Au creux du souvenir
C'en est fini de leur tapage
Elles tournent la page
Et vont s'endormir
Mais un jour sans crier gare
Elles vous reviennent en mémoire
Toi, tu voulais oublier
Un p'tit air galvaudé
Dans les rues de l'été
Toi, tu n'oublieras jamais
Une rue, un été
Une fille qui fredonnait
La, la, la, la, je vous aime
Chantait la rengaine
La, la, mon amour
Des paroles sans rien de sublime
Pourvu que la rime
Amène toujours
Une romance de vacances
Qui lancinante vous relance
Vrai, elle était si jolie
Si fraîche épanouie
Et tu ne l'as pas cueillie
Vrai, pour son premier frisson
Elle t'offrait une chanson
A prendre à l'unisson
La, la, la, la, tout rêve
Rime avec s'achève
Le tien n'rime à rien
Fini avant qu'il commence
Le temps d'une danse
L'espace d'un refrain
Trois petites notes de musique
Qui vous font la nique
Du fond des souvenirs
Lèvent un cruel rideau de scène
Sur mille et une peines
Qui n'veulent pas mourir
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