Alain Resnais’ latest, Wild Grass, snuck into stores this Tuesday, along with the second installment in the Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire. Disregarding the latter, Wild Grass made its premiere at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival back in 2009 where Resnais scooped up a “Lifetime achievement award for his work and exceptional contribution to the history of cinema”. Indeed, Resnais, at 88 years young, has been confounding audiences since the mid-1930s with such classics as Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961). His name is often identified with the French New Wave as a member of the Left Bank, a group of French directors, in the most inadequate layman’s terms possible, more focused on experimental filmmaking than their Right Bank counterparts (the Right Bank being the more famous branch of the French New Wave consisting of the Big Five: Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer, and Chabrol).
In Wild Grass, Resnais slaps another film onto his burgeoning pile of curiosities. Reportedly adapted from a Christian Gailly novel titled L'Incident, the film features Resnais’ former companion, Sabine Azéma, as a wild-haired dentist whose purse is snatched from her by a mangy thief upon exiting a shoe store. Later, a middle-aged man, played by André Dussollier, discovers her wallet in a parking lot and returns it to her. What follows is a perplexing romance where Dussollier stalks Azéma, Azéma stalks Dussollier, and Dussollier fools around with Azéma’s friend.
The characters’ actions and those of the story parallel the film’s striking, but peculiar imagery perfectly. Shots of wild grass straining for daylight under blankets of concrete introduce the film and interrupt it throughout, as well as shots of Azéma’s yellow purse floating through the air as her thief absconds with it, and a close up of Dussollier picking up her red wallet. They leap on screen at seemingly trivial points in the film and one wonders what they could possibly mean.
There are several endings to the film, and according to Resnais, they’re there for the viewer to decide which one fits him best. Whichever one you choose, the film’s mystery will remain intact, and you’ll be left to wander amongst its puzzling images trying to decipher their meaning helplessly. That’s Resnais for you.
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