02/09/2022 - VENICE 2022: Frederick Wiseman tries his hand at fiction for a second time, delivering a radical work about the passion and torments of Sophie Tolstoi vis-à-vis her famous husband

"A real poet burns himself out and burns others." At 92 years of age, American filmmaker Frederick Wiseman has decided to step through the fiction looking glass for a second time, abandoning the documentary domain in which he excels in order to venture into highly incendiary territory: that of passionate love, married life, disaffection and despair. And as was the case with his first attempt at fiction, The Last Letter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2002), the director has chosen to loosely adapt (using actress Nathalie Boutefeu) a predominantly epistolary work into a single-character monologue. Unveiled in competition at the 79th Venice Film Festival, A Couple [+see also:
trailer
film profile] blends together the private diary of Sophie Tolstoi, her autobiography Ma vie, and Lettres à sa femme by Léon Tolstoi (the world-famous Russian writer who lived from 1862 to 1910 and exchanged 840 letters with his wife).

But despite transporting us so far backwards in time, the movie is markedly modern in terms of the portrait it progressively paints: that of a woman of character who is suffocating as a devoted wife (to a man who’s endowed with a creative ingenuity which she loves and admires) and is torn between highly conflicting feelings (at 18 years of age she experiences a “wonderful yet terrible” wedding night, and the rumour that her husband already has a two-year-old child with a neighbour on their estate is already reaching her ears).

"Is our life as a couple finished?". Roaming through the majestic, sun-drenched, natural beauty of the sweeping La Boulaye Garden in Belle-Ile, Brittany, where cliffs overhang gigantic rocks withstanding the waves, and whose verdant environment is home to flora and fauna which the filmmaker details in its very many forms, Sophie Tolstoi (played by a remarkable Nathalie Boutefeu) relates her stormy marital life ("I wanted to remember what it was that kept us together for so many years", "your strength broke me, annihilated my personality, I spend my time suppressing my gifts on your behalf, neglecting myself, sacrificing myself for my family"). A barometer of changes in mood, hidden wounds, quarrels and reconciliations, which also exposes the weighty responsibility of domestic life, unsatiated desires for spiritual osmosis, a desire for death and a poignant, enduring, tattered love, the film touches on timeless feelings which many of today’s women will, sadly, easily identify with, whilst holding a rather unflattering mirror up to Sophie Tolstoi’s male counterpart, because the selfishness displayed by artist Léon Tolstoi really didn’t help matters.

Although visually splendid (courtesy of photography by John Davey) and undeniably powerful, A Couple is anything but accessible on account of its “theatrical” radicality revolving around the monologue form. Viewers must fully abandon themselves to the film in order to appreciate this work, which blends a gentle setting with a violent subject. In this sense, the movie’s short duration (63 minutes) proves especially helpful.

A Couple is produced by Zipporah Films and Wat Films (USA) in league with Météore Films. Sales are entrusted to The Party Film Sales.