“Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years.” - Simone Signoret
The joys of marriage have been extolled through the ages by all the great authors and its woes have been bemoaned by countless ordinary folk who have to live through its misfortunes (here of course I define marriage in its broadest sense, de facto couples and all forms of other partnerships included). Marriage can be heaven or it can be hell, depending on whether you marry an angel or a devil. Marriage can be the highest estate or the basest torture. However, most marriages seem to amble along through the years reaching neither the heights of ideal union, nor do they plunge into the depths of Gehenna. Most marriages last for years and the two partners drift apart and come back together again in paths that criss-cross with affections that waver, feelings that twinkle sometimes dim and sometimes bright.
The movie I’ll review for Movie Monday examines a relationship that has reached a crisis point. A partnership that is forced to re-examine itself through an external agency. Most marriages of course will be affected by external stressors and it is usually an factor from the outside that will prove to be the undoing of the marriage. The film we watched last weekend is Anthony Minghella’s 2006 “Breaking and Entering”, which was also written by him. It stars Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright-Penn, Martin Freeman and Rafi Gavron. It is a quirky film, well directed and acted, with sufficient interest to maintain interest despite the rather slow pace and the 120 minute length.
The plot unfolds in Kings Cross, London, where the British architect Will lives with his Swedish mate Liv. Theirs is a tired relationship, where passion has died and where Liv’s sole occupation is to devote herself to the needs of Bea, her autistic daughter. Will and his partner Sandy move into a warehouse in Kings Cross in quite an unsavoury neighbourhood. Their grand plan is an architectural urban renewal project of magnificent proportions which will transform the seedy neighbourhood into prime residential and retail paradise. Miro is an orphan and a refugee from Serbia, and he lives close by with his mother Amira, who is a seamstress.
Miro is influenced by his crooked uncle and cousin who are thieves. Miro is a traceur - practitioner of “parkour”, an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body. It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment, from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls. He uses his considerable abilities to break into Will and Sandy’s company to burgle computers. This happens twice in a row, and after the police give Will and Sandy little hope of catching the burglars, Will decides to stake-out during the nights to find the culprit, and he witnesses Miro trying to break-into the firm again. Will runs after Miro and finds out where he lives.
Will does not call the police, and the next day visits Amira on the pretext of having a coat of his repaired. Will is attracted to Amira, visiting her everyday, while becoming more estranged from Liv. Amira finds out that Miro has been involved in the burglary of Will’s company and as Will is attracted to her, she has sex with him in order to obtain compromising photographs with which to blackmail him and assure that her son doesn’t end up in gaol…
The film is quite atmospheric in parts, very earthy and seedy in others. A couple of sub-plots prove to be rather distracting instead of enriching the main story line. However, the plot itself is strong enough to shine through and one enjoys seeing the movie, despite its minor weaknesses. Juliette Binoche is a wonderful Amira and the young Rafi Gavron plays the confused, displaced and hurt Miro marvellously. Jude Law is more decorative than accomplished as Will and Robin Wright-Penn plays the fragile Liv very well.
The theme of the movie is love and the type of love that can survive shocks and external stressors versus the “love” that is based on sexual attraction, lust, passion. Affection and love are contrasted as are different types of love, such as the love between mother and child and the love between son and (absent or lost) father. The fading relationship of Liv and Will is beautifully presented and in a conversation,Will says to Liv:
“I feel as if I'm tapping on a window. You're somewhere behind the glass but you can't hear me. Even when you're angry, like now, it's like someone a long long way away is angry with me.”
Amira who initially sees in Will a romantic love, and finds in her broken heart some sparks of love being reignited. She suffers when she suspects that Will is using her to put her son and brother in law behind bars. In defence of her son’s crimes she screams at Will:
“You steal someone's heart, that's really a crime.”
See the movie, I think it’s worth your while to hunt it out at your local video shop and rent it out, rather than wait for our TV to show it. In the meantime, tell what do you think of marriage? What are your experiences of it? Has it been Heaven or Hell for you? Or is it something that you wear, like a comfortable pair of jeans that gets more and more faded and threadbare with time?
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