VENICE 2021: My Night ‘Ma Nuit’
VENICE 2021For a large percentage of Antoinette Boulat's feature film Ma Nuits' running time, there are moments in which this small, tender, and intimate drama go into full French cinematic mode of existential crisis motif, constantly evoked through its hardened, empirical and pragmatic thematics. Nevertheless, and thankfully so, Boulat's film swiftly turns into a wonderfully balanced and tentative drama with two brilliant central performances and a touching thought on grief.
To a large degree of why Ma Nuit works so exceptionally well is undoubtedly the lead performance from Lou Lampros as Marion. Sensational does not quite cut it here, as Lampros provides an ever-tender and internally brooding performance detailing grief and pain on such a level that shows snippets but never truly comes to fruition. It is restraint but never causal: perfectly curated is this depressive state that the viewer begins to be engaged in this rich tapestry of mood and pain, so much so, like the character present, the viewer almost becomes entangled in this web of hurt themselves.
What is surprising is that, with the director Boulat, this screenplay of just over eighty-five minutes has the addition of both Anne-Louise Trividic and François Choquet as co-writers, which can create confusion in the narrative because, for the most part, Ma Nuit takes place over just one night. Nevertheless, to ying Lampros' yang is the performance of Tom Mercier as Alex, a character who enters quite late in this story in terms of narrative but subtly lifts this depressive state and mood surrounding the feature. Mercier and Lampros do great work with the screenplay, giving it character and heart even though, with the four credited writers, it almost engulfs itself in the existential mood of it all. They have wonderful chemistry and a delicate tone with each other that plays perfectly in the enigmatic nature of will-they-or-won’t-they.
It would seem that the extensive co-writing credit is down to the brooding and beefing of the character's weight in dialogue. Again, it is overly excessive at times and in brevity, and the quaintness of self-examination is when this feature actually speaks at its loudest and most powerful. That being said, the passion, feelings, and thought are presented in a warming manner.
It is that quick execution of editing from Maxime Mathis with a documentarian and hand-held approach from cinematographer Laetitia de Montalambert that curate this piece into a more organic and fabulous manner of immersive but never invasive filmmaking in this journey that has a sense of believability. Never outstaying its welcome with a tight running time, Antoinette Boulat's feature Ma Nuit is an emotionally soothing and delicately produced drama that echoes beautiful sentiments on coping with grief and examines such with tenderness and gravity.
