WHEN THE SEA RISES
Directed & Written by: Gilles Porte & Yolande Moreau.
Produced by: Humbert Balsan & Catherine Burniaux.
Director of Photography: Gilles Porte.
Edited by: Eric Renault.
Music by: Philippe Roueche.
Released by: New Yorker.
Language: French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France/Belgium. 93 min. Not Rated.
With: Yolande Moreau, Wim Willaert & Olivier Gourmet.

Armed with a chair and the minimum of props, Irčne (Yolande Moreau) drives alone, singing buoyantly off-key to La Traviata, traveling from one provincial French town to the next. And just as a bit of cinder in Celia Johnson's eye initiates Brief Encounter, a broken-down car sets the stage for this traveling actress to meet lanky Dries (Wim Willaert), a local willing to lend a hand. She pays back this shaggy-haired Good Samaritan with a free ticket for that evening's performance, where she dons a macabre commedia dell'arte-like mask, her hands and dress smeared with red make-up blood, and drolly announces, "A dirty business. I got mixed-up in a crime."

Her act's called, appropriately, "A Dirty Business," during which she pulls Dries out of the audience to join her onstage as her character's new "chicken": boyfriend and partner in crime. Dries is hooked ("You make a living clowning?") and shows up for the second night, this time paying. There are, however, warning signs about this stage-door Johnny. During Irčne's performance, he gets in a fight with two latecomers and is tossed out. Perhaps it's the stream of blood trickling down his face (from fighting) or his hangdog eyes, but Irčne agrees to give him a lift home - a warehouse with huge carnival giants, his passion. Although they're in a small town, it has the most complicated street directions, and Irčne accepts his invitation to sleep over - in a separate bed. The following day, she will telephone her husband; she will be delayed coming home.

The awkward flirtation and Irčne's withering resistance to a new romantic prospect make up most of this bittersweet film. It's not for nothing that in the first shot Irčne removes her wedding ring as she applies her make up. As Irčne, Moreau is physically a cross between a younger and elfish Judi Dench and a heavy-set Kate Bush. In her mid-40s, she is at first ill at ease in her new role as a love interest. Her shrinking shyness as she has drinks with Dries and his mates is in complete contrast to her commanding stage presence. She is hardly a symbol of empowerment, like Percy Adlon's zaftig stud seducer in Sugarbaby.

Any preciousness of the two eccentric lead characters is undercut by Moreau's subtle performance and Dries' self-defensive insecurity. Filmed frequently in close-ups with a hand-held camera, the film's intimacy is not unlike the similarly wistful romance on the road Lost in Translation or the fanciful My Summer of Love with its impulsive teenage lovers. If there is any justice, this impressive first feature by co-directors Moreau and Gilles Porte will be remembered on more than one best-of-the-year list. Kent Turner
January 13, 2006