Clouds of Sils Maria

Dir: Olivier Assayas

2014

***

Clouds of Sils Maria is a far more interesting film than it is an entertaining one. Part autobiography, and part life imitating art (and art imitating art), it is a film within a film full of self-reference and meta twists. The film follows an established middle-aged actress (Binoche) who is cast as the older lover in a romantic lesbian drama opposite an upstart young starlet (Moretz). She is overcome with personal insecurities and professional jealousies—all while sexual tension simmers between her and her personal assistant (Stewart). The screenplay was written with Binoche in mind and incorporates elements from her life into the plot. Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is an international film star and stage actress. She travels with a loyal young American assistant, Valentine (Kristen Stewart). Twenty years earlier, Maria got her big break when she was cast and successfully performed as a young girl "Sigrid" in both the play and film versions of Maloja Snake by Wilhelm Melchior, a Swiss playwright who is now elderly. The play centers on the tempestuous relationship between Sigrid and "Helena," a vulnerable older woman. Helena commits suicide after Sigrid takes advantage of her, and dumps her. While traveling to Zurich to accept an award on behalf of Wilhelm, and planning to visit him at home the following day at his house in Sils Maria – a remote settlement in the Alps – Maria learns of Wilhelm’s death. His widow Rosa later confides that Wilhelm had ended his life and had been terminally ill. During the awards ceremony, Maria is approached by Klaus Diesterweg, a popular theatre director. He wants to persuade her to appear on stage in Maloja Snake again, but this time in the role of Helena, the older woman. Maria is torn and reluctantly accepts. To prepare for the role, she accepts Rosa's offer to stay at the Melchiors' house in Sils Maria. Rosa is leaving to escape her memories of Wilhelm. Maria's discussions with Valentine and their read-throughs of the play's scenes evoke uncertainty about the nature of their relationship. A young American actress, 19-year-old Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz), has been chosen to interpret the role of Sigrid. Researching her on Google and the internet, Valentine tells Maria, who is out of touch with social media, that Ellis has been involved in numerous scandals. Questions soon multiply regarding aging, time, culture and the blurring line between the Sigrid/Helena and the Valentine/Maria relationships. Maria and Jo-Ann finally meet, but their relationship is complicated. Jo-Ann appears to be implicated in the attempted suicide of the wife of her new (and married) boyfriend. During their time at Sils Maria, Maria and Valentine spend much of their days hiking in the Alps. On a final such outing, they hike to the Maloja Pass – to observe a fascinating early morning cloud phenomenon that appears low in the pass (the "Maloja Snake" of the play's title, but also the "Clouds of Sils Maria" in the film's title). Valentine suggests that Helena may not commit suicide but simply walk away to start a new life. Maria protests that Helena walks into the mountains never to return and must therefore be dead. After suggesting that their approaches to the play are too different for her (Valentine) to be a useful assistant, a disconsolate Valentine disappears without explanation, never to reappear. Six weeks later, a young filmmaker who has previously sent a script to Maria visits her by appointment five minutes before the curtain rises on the opening night of Maloja Snake in London. Maria seems preoccupied, so near to curtain rise, and dismisses his suggested ideas about the proposed film role he is offering her as "too abstract for me". When she says the role he has written is too young for her and would suit Jo-Ann better, he suggests that the character is ageless and that he does not relate to the era we are in with its Internet scandals and trashy values. Clearly he admires her and her work. Maria does not give him a reply as to whether she will take part in the film. Then she is on stage, smoking and waiting for Sigrid. There are many scenes in the film where it is hard to tell what is the film and what is a rehearsal and the character of Maria becomes more and more the character Helena – something that terrifies Maria as the actress who played Helena in the original production with her committed suicide after the play had finished. The fictional play Maloja Snake is supposedly a "condensed, brutalized version" of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder that was adapted into a film ten years before the writer/director killed himself. In another meta twist, Juliette Binoche's character, Maria Enders, is returning to a revival of a play written by her mentor/director Wilhelm Melchior, which made her famous decades earlier. In real life, director Olivier Assayas co-wrote the script of Rendez-vous which helped make Binoche a star. Binoche was so concentrated in the authenticity of her character, that she took a role in 2014’s Godzilla to believably deliver a line from the script about acting in blockbusters. In said scene she takes a swipe at Chloë Grace Moretz’s Jo-Ann Ellis after watching her in a sci-fi drama that she can’t take seriously. Binoche clearly makes her point without criticizing her peers. The film begs the question of how much of the story is actually mirroring Binoche’s life, who is the real Henryk Wald (who supposedly took advantage of her in her youth) and who was Wilhelm Melchior? It’s an interesting concept and Binoche is brilliant but I didn’t always love the direction. That said, when the direction was good, it was great. I thought the idea worked well most of the time but I think David Ives’s (and Roman Polanski) did it better in their versions of Venus in Furs based on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s 1870’s novel. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is also a far superior play/film. I feel the film stands on the shoulders of giants somewhat but there is plenty to enjoy based on its own merits. Kristen Stewart is fine as Valentine but in all honesty I can think of many other actors how could have done just as good a job if not better. Chloë Grace Moretz however is brilliant as the Hollywood brat, although it is an easier role to play in many respects, she performs it with gusto.