Beauty and a French Soufflé

When Count Alexis Vronsky first sees Anna in Anna Karenina, she is scanning the crowd from the doorway of a train car. The first encounter between Antoine and Angele, the protagonists of Venus Beauty Institute, also occurs in a train station-a subway station in Paris. In the book, Anna Karenina's "shining gray eyes rested with friendly attention on Vronsky's face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone." In the movie, Angele runs after a train and screams at one of its passengers, "you dumped me, so I have a right to stalk you." [sic.]

Nathalie Baye, 40 and radiant, plays Angele, a stylist at the Venus Beauty Institute. Her marriage has ended bitterly, and perhaps for that reason (mystery, mystery) her ex's face is permanently scarred. Since her divorce, Angele has energetically pursued partners for commitment-free sex and, more importantly, dinner. One of these flings goes sour in the train station where Antoine first sees her.

Antoine, a too-hot-for-hygiene artist type, decides Angele is the love of his life and tells her so. But Angele wants none of the jealousy and possible gunfights that love entails. She gives Antoine a rebuff equating love to slavery ("love is slavery," I think it was. I forgot a notebook for quotes.) The movie's central conflict is that Angele has given up on love and Antoine won't give up.

The film is mostly confined to the Venus Beauty Institute, whose glass storefront is used to great cinematographic advantage. Angele dispenses creams, ointments, and depilatories while enduring the quirky vanities of clients. For help she has pink-uniformed co-workers: Marie (Audrey Tautou), at twenty and lovely, is the target of an elderly widow's special attention, Samantha (Mathilde Seigner) attempts suicide under the duress of heavy foreshadowing. But these characters are like snapshots, brief though believable portraits. Other than Angele, the film's characters are never confusing enough to be understood.

Like Anna Karenina, Angele has a suppressed nervous energy-"You're never at rest," Antoine tells her, (approximately) "that's what I like about you." It's more than just the jitters: she seems to sense some palpable, immediate danger, like hit men with flamethrowers. It's like you missed a scene that went "you have twenty minutes to get the money, Angele, or the Venus Beauty Institute will burn!" Her impatience becomes endearing when directed at her impossible customers, like Madame Buisse, who struts around Paris in nothing but a trenchcoat which she removes whenever possible. When a young French hooligan solicits Marie (pretty, seeing the widower) for "the finishing touches," Angele bluntly shows him to the visually poetic door. "I speak to be heard," she replies to Marie's shock at her language. This is one of the lines i remember verbatim.

All the overheard conversations involve looks-except the conversations about gunfights, which remind us that violence is a possible outcome of any story unfolding on screen. It works. I constantly expected someone to shoot themselves or someone else in a fit of enigmatic French passion.

Nevertheless, it's not as pensive as the typical Frenchy love movie. (By this I mean the only Frenchy love movie I've ever seen, about a woman who jumps into the river after going to buy yogurt.) Anna Karenina contains real observations about what people can do to one another. I don't think the same can be said for Venus Beauty. We never quite know why most of it's characters do things, but at least they aren't stereotypes, and at least they're enjoyable to watch.

VENUS BEAUTY INSTITUTE

directed by

Scott Elliot

starring

Sigourney Weaver

David Straithairn

Julianne Moore

First Look Pictures

directed by

Scott Elliot

starring

Sigourney Weaver

David Straithairn

Julianne Moore

First Look Pictures