How the French Dream of Love in Russia
Valerie Pavia looks the way I would imagine Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina would. She is the kind of woman who is beautiful in a very refined way. She has good posture and comes off polite and serious. Her eyes are sad and she looks like she is thinking about something bittersweet while she talks to you. Given her star appeal, one would think Pavia would make herself the subject of her films. A face like hers was meant to be filmed, after all. But Pavia evades her own subjectivity by making films in which, mostly, she is not on screen. Her films are narrative, in that they tell rich and heartfelt stories, but the story and the images do not correspond completely and the viewer has the feeling of being inside Pavia’s head, rather than looking at it. Of all the narratives presented at Directors Lounge, Pavia’s is by far the most deft. She is equally a filmmaker and a writer and her language is sharp and romantic—truly the emobdiment of the phrase ‘bitter-sweet’. The story of Le Reve de l’Ours is of an affair between and older woman (Pavia) and a younger man (Illia) during her stay in Moscow. Illia first speaks to Pavia when he is dressed in a wolf costume, a detail that gives the story a slight fairy-tale tone. He gives Pavia his number and she calls him and they make a date to meet at a cafe together. Their first date is magical and Illia is the best kisser she has ever had. Their mouths fit together so harmoniously that the fact that he is 17 and poor no longer matters. As the affair continues, Pavia delves into the excitement of new love; she talks about her affair to taxi drivers, friends, and she misses Illia terribly when he is away. But inevitably, the shine wears off the shoes, and Illia reveals himself to be what he is, a clumsy teenager. First their sex life unravels. Illia gets a job and becomes less available as a lover. His energy dwindles and he becomes more inclined to watch TV than lock lips. Pavia writes, ‘Since he got the new job, the pink has left his cheeks.’ After a long shower, Illia comes out covered with a rash, which Pavia comments on, but which doesn’t stop her from taking his love when she can get it. When the love affair finally dies, Pavia has contracted the same skin disease from Illia and she writes, ‘It was the first time I’d loved someone so much that they literally got under my skin.’ Faced merely with this script, I would imagine that the corresponding images would include a young man and an older woman in a variety of scenarios mentioned in the story. I would expect to see them in a cafe, in bed, walking hand in hand through a snowy Moscow street…But surprisingly the lovers are never pictured. Instead the viewer is presented with a very personal portrait of Moscow. The Coca-Cola promoters in their Santa looking suits, the steps of a subway where people shuffle in and out, the snow filled sky, a public square in spring where people sit in the sun enjoying the good weather. Men gathered in groups discussing business. Women serving food in the bitter cold. Watching the world through Pavia’s love-sick lens is much more effective than actually seeing her with the young man. The viewer is so much closer to the characters and the story because there is never a moment of dissapointment where the boy we imagined and the actual boy do not sync up. The viewer can derive any physical character they want without disturbing the delicate web of the love story. Pavia is French and Russian, but she lives mostly in France. Her voice is the voice narrating the story, and even though she speaks in Russian, there is a definite French accent in her pronunciation. The two cultures that exist simultaneously in her voice, also exist in her storytelling. Russia and France have been entwined for centuries. For example, half of Anna Karennina is written in French because the aristocracy spoke French to each other, not Russian. But the tragedy of the Russian love story mixed with French cinematic sensibilities creates a new splicing of these cultures that will hopefully result in many more collaborations. If Pavia’s heart ever breaks again, their will be an audience of cinephiles breathlessly awaiting her sad story. -Sabrina
