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People are voting emotionally.

One of my all time favorites.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of the highest compliments I can pay a movie is that, after watching it, I find it hard to watch other movies. I am a huge movie fan and such films are rare. "Mademoiselle Chambon" is that kind of a movie. After watching it, I couldn't watch any other film, so I just watched "Mademoiselle Chambon" again. "Mademoiselle Chambon" does the best job of any film I've ever seen at capturing one particular life experience. Some loves make sense and fit neatly into our life narratives. We fall in love with a person because we've had extended contact with that person. We know that he is of an appropriate age, social class, belief system, and occupation. We agree with this person on politics, music, and food. We have long talks with these rational loves, and share life events. Other loves are wildly irrational; they're like being overwhelmed by an invisible wind. We look across a crowded room, catch the eye of a complete stranger, and, within moments or hours, we know we are as in love as we will ever be. We're not in love because we've had a long conversation with this person and gotten to know them; we haven't. We're not in love because we've shared key life events; we have not. We don't decide on this type of love. It decides on us. With this love, every tiny detail, every evanescent nuance, silent moments when nothing is said, take on thunderous impact: her eyes move from the floor to his shoulder; her knees swing three inches toward his, his lips slightly part. Our hearts pound. We surrender to the full thrust of love, all of its physical and spiritual manifestations, and yet we know next to nothing concrete about the other person. Perhaps we never see that person again. Perhaps we exchange a few stolen kisses, or an afternoon of passion. Perhaps we connect forever; perhaps we say a heart-wrenching goodbye. "Mademoiselle Chambon" captures wordless, irrational love. Jean (Vincent Lindon) is a rumpled, paunchy, middle-aged construction worker. He is married to Anne-Marie, a factory worker. They have one son, Jeremy. Anne-Marie is hurt on the job and can't pick up Jeremy from school. Jean must go. There he encounters Mademoiselle Veronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain) Jeremy's teacher. And Jean will never be the same. Jean and Anne-Marie have a few other meetings. Not much is said. Not much happens. A passer-by, carefully observing their encounters, would have no idea that he or she was witnessing an event that neither Jean nor Veronique will ever forget. Many "slow" movies bore me to tears. "Mademoiselle Chambon" is a "slow" movie and it never bored me. I came to understand that every line of dialogue, every apparently casual scene, is a minefield packed with meaning. In the opening scenes, Jean reveals his awkward inability to help his son with his homework. This prepares us for the story of an inarticulate construction worker who falls in love with a school teacher. The topic of his son's homework is the direct object – the object acted upon by the noun – or by fate. In a couple of scenes of Veronique's apartment, the viewer catches a glimpse of Bernini's statue of a helpless St. Teresa of Avila being pierced with an arrow of passion by a smiling cherub. St. Teresa is very much the direct object of that arrow, as are Jean and Veronique. Passion is beautiful and painful, life affirming and life threatening. Passion is both sexual and sacred. Jean is shown both tearing down, and putting up, walls. These walls are metaphorical as well as actual. Three scenes in this movie are as definitive a treatment of their subject matter as any scene in any film. In one, a musician plays music with her back to her audience. Before she begins, she turns around with a luminous look of vulnerability. In another, two people listen to a piece of music. I won't describe the third scene to you, because I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but if you see the film, you'll know what I mean. "Mademoiselle Chambon" is not perfect. It is under-produced, in Dogme-95 style. Actors don't wear make-up; there's no professional lighting to speak of. "Mademoiselle Chambon" would have worked better for me with higher production values. I got to know Jean, but I was never sure of Veronique. I wanted to like her more than I did, to understand her very hard choices better, and to respect her choices more. Aure Atika is miscast. I never believed her as a factory worker, or as Jean's wife. And the ending struck me as incomplete and unsatisfying. I think the filmmaker wanted to make a movie that would ravish audiences emotionally. That he did. I wanted to have an intellectual understanding of how these events would play out in the future of the characters. I didn't get that from this movie, and I left it feeling that a sequel is necessary. Finally, of course this film is like the classic David Lean film, "Brief Encounter" starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson. I think that film gives the viewer more of a sense of the fullness of all the characters, and how the events shown during the film will play out in the characters' lives in the future. In short, to me, "Brief Encounter" felt more like a complete work of art.

Another overrated French film comes down the pike! This time it's a slow moving little soap opera called Mademoiselle Chambon. Because it's quiet and understated, some people might mistake that for something profoundly emotional but in reality the characters are so paper thin, in the end we can't possibly care for them.The protagonist is Jean, a construction worker played by Vincent Lindon. He falls for Mademoiselle Veronique Chambon, a short-term contract schoolteacher played by Sandrine Kiberlain. Lindon and Kiberlain were married in real life but have subsequently separated. The film begins quite slowly as we are introduced to Jean, his wife Anne-Marie and their son, Jeremy. Veronique is Jeremy's teacher and she invites Jean to answer questions about his job before a class full of inquisitive elementary school students. Veronique then has a paying job for Jean as one of her window shutters is broken, so Jean comes over to fix it.You would think that Jean and Veronique have a lot to talk about like any normal people who are just getting to meet each other for the first time. But not so here in 'Mademoiselle Chambon'. One problem is that Jean appears to be depressed over his soulless marriage, so that prevents him from opening up. He does take an interest in her violin playing and finally convinces her to play a tune. Veronique offers to lend a bunch of CDs to Jean which feature the piece she has just played for him. Veronique also appears to be suffering from some kind of malaise and we find out little about her except for the fact that she usually only stays for a year or so before moving on to take other teaching jobs, in different parts of France.If Jean and Veronique seem a bit sketchy as characters, the supporting players have even less to do. Anne-Marie has one significant scene where she confronts Jean about being distant and there's also Jean's elderly father, who makes a short trip with his son to check out some caskets, anticipating his demise in a few years. As for Jeremy, his parents are seen helping him with his homework at the beginning of the film.If the characters are paper thin, the plot of 'Mademoiselle Chambon' is no different. Basically we're waiting until Jean decides to bed Veronique. He hesitates and at first communicates that he's unable to get physical because his wife has just informed him that she's pregnant with their second child. Veronique decides to give up her teaching job and go back to Paris after she concludes that Jean is tied up at home. She accepts Jean's invitation to play the violin at his father's 80th birthday party which is nice! But raging hormones cannot be contained and sure enough, the concupiscent couple ultimately hop in the sack right before the film's climax.In grand soap opera tradition, Veronique throws down the gauntlet and tells Jean in substance, 'put up or shut up'. Jean does show up at the train station (carrying a bag) and it appears he's about to join Veronique as she boards the train; but sure enough, Jean realizes he has commitments at home and is unable to honor his promise to go to Paris with Veronique.So ends the turgid 'Mademoiselle Chambon'. Don't get me wrong, it's a thoroughly watchable film and the acting and cinematography are fine. Nonetheless, nothing much happens; and when something does, it's something we've seen a thousand times before.

Sort of like a Gallic version of Brief Encounter, the story centres around the romance between a carpenter and a school teacher in a small, bucolic French village. Jean (played by Vincent Lindon, from Welcome, etc) is a happily married family man. During a visit to school to pick up his son, he connects with his teacher Veronique (Sandrine Kiberlain), and an instant and mutual attraction develops. Jean helps build a new window in her home, and is entranced by her love of music. She was once a promising violinist before becoming a school teacher. But as the romance grows more serious, Jean learns that his wife (Aure Atika) is pregnant. He is faced with a difficult choice – love or family first? Mademoiselle Chambon is reminiscent of the films of veteran Eric Roehmer with its languid pace and visual style. Stephane Brize directs in a slow and restrained manner that accentuates the rhythms and banal routine of everyday life for these ordinary people. The film unfolds with lots of silences that build atmosphere, and it is filled with a sense of longing. The performances of the two leads are excellent and they bring plenty of emotion and depth to their characters. The fact that Lindon and Kiberlain were once a real-life couple brings a dramatic frisson to their on-screen relationship and there is a great rapport and chemistry between them. Kiberlain apparently also learned to play the violin, which lends credibility to a few scenes. Atika is also very good as Jean's wife who suspects that there is something troubling her husband. For lovers of sophisticated, intelligent and subtle French dramas, Mademoiselle is a real treat.

In Stéphane Brizé's restrained fourth film (which he's adapted from a 1996 Éric Holder novel) a tight-lipped mason named Jean (Vincent Lindon) in an unnamed provincial French town meets his little boy's schoolteacher, the Mademoiselle of the title (Sandrine Kiberlain) and his world subtly changes. He loves his wife Anne-Marie (Aure Atika), who works in a print shop, and little Jérémy (Arthur Le Houerou), but Mademoiselle (her name is Véronique, but Jean never gets beyond the formal "vous" with her) has a refinement, a delicacy. And she plays the violin -- classical music that Jean seems unfamiliar with but delighted by.At first Mademoiselle asks Jean at the last minute to fill in and speak to her class (and his son's) about his work, an experience that also gives him great pleasure. Perhaps he enjoys indirectly telling this refined maiden lady who attracts him about his basic, satisfying work, building houses that are always different and will last, as one child asks, "for your whole life." Then when she asks help with a broken window at her flat, he takes a look and then insists on being the one to replace it. Then comes the music. He insists that she play; photos and the violin tell him of her former profession.This film has only a hint of sex, and no raw physicality, but it works with the body, with silence, and with gesture. Throughout it shows Lindon acting the part by doing hard construction work on screen, breaking up paving with a pneumatic drill, mounting the window, laying bricks of a wall, and so on. He even walks like a skilled laborer. Anne-Marie is always ironing, cooking, shopping, making lists. Mademoiselle Chambon reads, rests, places her hand delicately on her neck. Jean tenderly washes the feet of his old father (charming veteran Jean-Marc Thibault).Finally the teacher plays a recording of chamber music at her place for Jean and as they sit together listening they slowly hold hands, embrace, and cling together as if at home, but afraid to go further. This carefully paced sequence is one of the film's most effective. However many "make-out" scenes you may have seen, this one still feels fresh. Lindon is like a fine mason in his acting, slowly, patiently laying the bricks of gesture. A silence and a pause can speak volumes.Both Véronique and Jean fight their attraction. And can it go anywhere? But it keeps growing, despite gestures in the opposite direction. Jean tells Mademoiselle that her CD's interest him even though he hasn't listened to them yet. She usually changes schools every year, but tells him, in a key scene, that she's been asked to fill in for someone and stay on. But instead of expressing enthusiasm, Jean blurts out that his wife is pregnant.This is one anchor to the family: one child, and another coming. Another is Jean's father. Jean and Anne-Marie are planning a big birthday party for the old man at their house with family members coming from all over. Family matters. But Jean shows how far his feelings have gone in another direction -- even though we've seen only those restrained moments -- when he invites Mademoiselle Chambon to come and play the violin for his father. It's not certain that his wife has suspected anything, but she has noticed that Jean seems bored, indifferent, irritable. And she might suspect why now.What follows is surprising -- agonizingly suspenseful -- and quite familiar. We've seen this kind of story before. We've seen these characters before. But we've rarely seen more delicacy than Bizé brings to his treatment of the story, which is haunting in a classic way without feeling in any way retro -- though perhaps the provincial setting was chosen to avoid that, to have events unfold in a place that's less aggressively modern and hip than Paris.Lindon and Kiberlain are husband and wife, though now estranged, which may help explain the magnetic energy in their scenes together. There are plenty of lines here, but there's a distrust of language, together with a touching desire to use it properly. "I'd like to hear more tunes," Jean tells Véronique. "Is that right, to say 'tunes'?." At the outset, Jérémy poses a homework problem to his parents to find the "direct object" in a sentence and they haven't a clue, but patiently figure out what this means. Bizé is great with the children. Arthur Le Houerou as the son is unfailingly alive and natural; and his classmates are spontaneous and charming (though primed, as classes are) when they excitedly ask Jean about his work.If there is a weakness to the film it's the danger that the differences of class and culture are pelled out a little too clearly. Lindon is a magnificent actor, but as a man with many illustrious relatives and one-time suitor of Princess Caroline of Monaco he is not exactly drawing on personal experience in playing a mason whose father was also a mason. Nonetheless he is for the most part utterly convincing. It's the film itself that plays on broad differences that a screenplay of 90 minutes duration cannot quite adequately delineate. Lindon has a harried, careworn, but solid quality that fits a working man in need of reawakening. Kiberlain seems held inward, decent but tragically needy. You wouldn't know that she's been around the block with the actual Lindon and had a child by him; she could be this uptight maiden lady on the brink of lifelong spinsterhood. There's a sadness about her, a sweet sadness.Opened in mid-October 2009 in Paris, this film is part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center for 2010. What a contrast with the mad body-presses and adulterous whirlwind of another film in the series, Cédric Kahn's Regret. When it comes to the varieties of love, the French have the bases covered.