Je Ne Suis Pas La Pour Etre Aime (Not Here To Be Loved)

Cast: Patrick Chesnais, Anne Consigney
Director: Stephen Brize

When work is just work, it takes away life from you. It makes you cynical, makes you disinterested and you grow old much before you are actually old. There are many jobs in this world which would do this to a man. Bailiff work is one of those.

Fifty year old Jean Claude Delsart is worn out by court bailiff work and gave up the idea of life offering any sweet surprises some time ago. Very opposite to his office is a dance school of Tango. When his doctor advises him to get some physical workout, jean claude signs up for classes and meets Franscoise, a woman in her thirties who had a crush on jean claude when he was younger. Magic begins to happen between the two and just when jean claude begins to have hopes on a better life, he discovers that she is engaged and to be married in a few weeks time. Feeling betrayed and used, jean claude withdraws himself emotionally and physically from her. Franscoise is confused not knowing whether the passion she feels for jean claude is worth leaving everything that she has waited for all her life, a wedding. Patrick Chesnais plays jean claude with a neutra expression on his face mostly, except when in deep distress. Very interesting interpretation. French great director Robert Bresson believed in the idea of non-acting, in the sense that he never wanted his actors to show any emotion in any scene. The content of the scene would lend its essence into the actors and then into the perceptions of the audience, was his theory. For this very same reason, Bresson never repeated an actor in his entire career, he was afraid that the actor would learn acting and begin to act. In complete contrast to Patrick's jean claude is Anne Consigney's Franscoise, she is full of life, full of expressions and passion. You have to see the way she holds onto jean claude's arms, in their tango, it is as if she belonged there, right in his arms and never wants to get out from there. The dances, even though very low-key are high in emotion and passion. I was spellbound. When the film ended, my expression was Wow!

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