A Tout de Suite (2005)

Lili (Isild Le Bresco) keeps a journal. At first, she notes dates and other mundane details: it’s 1975, she’s 19, she’s bored. But even as her impassive voiceover opens A Tout de Suite, you’re seeing what she’s not telling: Lili wakes in her white-on-white bedroom, cuddled up with another girl; as she pads into the kitchen in search of breakfast, the camera remains low, discretely observational, but also mobile, following her scarce acknowledgement of the maid who hardly bustles in the kitchen and soon after, the girls as they sneak out the front door.

Based on Elisabeth Fanger’s memoir, When I Was 19, Benoit Jacquot’s extraordinary film reveals Lili in bits and pieces, mostly wordless. Whether focused on her stunningly sensuous face or standing back to take in her long limbs, Caroline Champetier’s enthralling black-and-white camerawork is at once nimble and evocative, restive and inspired. A series of brief images complete the introduction to Lili’s routine: she fidgets in drawing class, goes with her friend to meet a couple of nondescript boys for half a cafe dinner, ducks into a bar for sandwiches. And here, Lili’s life changes. Spotting beautiful Moroccan boy Bada (Ouassini Embarek) across the room, she melts. Her eyes soften, her spine stiffens: she’s got her object. She makes it her mission to find him again, and by the time she’s dancing with him in a nightclub some days later (to Diana Ross’ perfectly banal “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?”), it’s clear that Lili is entranced, at least as much as she can imagine being entranced. She brings Bada home to hide in her bedroom along with her girlfriend, where they go gently, and pretty much directly, to sleep.

It’s easy to see Lili and Bada’s mutual attraction: equally beautiful and passive, they’re also exotic to one another. She’s upscale, blond, insouciant; he’s youthfully androgynous, mysteriously Muslim, maybe a little rough. Their sex is frankly depicted and seems no big deal, Bada picks her up at school and then buys her a chic bracelet with an impressive wad of cash, she eats meals with her father and older sister, their conversation abstractedly centered on her absent mother. Lili’s time with Bada seems slightly special, but also easily folded into her schedule. “I don’t know if it was the true life,” she muses in voiceover.

When Bada calls one evening, he tells her it’s to say goodbye; he’s in a bank, where he and an accomplice are holding hostages. Cops surround them, a couple of people are dead, and he promises he’ll try to call again. Lili’s surprise barely registers in her face. “Are you crazy?” she wonders, then turns on the tv to confirm Bada’s story. At dinner that night, when she’s unable to speak or eat, her father barely notices.

Lili’s choices now emerge directly from this careful collection of particulars, as she has made herself up out of her perceived monotony. She thinks she’s cynical, maybe world-weary, but the movie suggests that she’s actually just inexperienced and a little reckless, though never quite unthinking. Sneaking Bada and his hotheaded accomplice Alain (Nicolas Duvauchelle) into her bedroom the night of the crime, Lili watches them sleep, then notices the bag full of stolen cash; as she unzips it just enough for a glimpse inside, the camera takes her view, close on the noisy zipper and the crisp bills. Not quite able to formulate a response, she goes along: Alain instructs her to make arrangements for their pickup by his girl, Joelle (Laurence Cordier), and Bada says she can come with, if she wants.

The thing is, Lili doesn’t quite know what she wants. Maybe it’s adventure, maybe it’s Bada. Maybe she just wants not to live in Paris and go to art school. Certainly, the film calls up images from just about any New Wave movie or other couple-on-the-run movies, from They Live by Night (1949) to Breathless (1960) to Badlands (1973), especially as Lili’s voiceover recalls Holly’s bland reflections on her casually homicidal boyfriend. When Bada worries that he and Alain are now “killers,” Lili presses him for details, mostly to assuage his guilt. Did he actually do the killing? He gazes into the camera, away from her, unable either to say the words or stop fretting: he is now newly named (“killer”), guilty and for the rest of his life awaiting inevitable capture.

Lili’s comprehension of any of this remains limited, at least as far as she might express it. As they travel by train and ferry — to Spain, Morocco, Greece — Lili’s bland observations are at once weirdly poetic and illustrate her persistent lack of context (“We stayed in Tangiers first,” she notes, “They say it was the best hotel, and I believe it”). Being “on the lam” is less exciting than more of the same; while their paramours head off to spend some money, Lili and Joelle ponder what to call themselves: “bandettes” sounds fine, a made-up word for a made-up existence.

Though she never quite finds language for her experience, Lili’s slowly emerging self-understanding appears freely on screen: whether in motion (scampering through surf or seducing her man), or still (cringing at Alain’s explosive temper or quietly noting Bada’s prayers), she’s much the same, mostly silent, exquisitely languorous. Her gradual coming to self-consciousness is rushed along when she finds herself suddenly abandoned by her fellow criminals. But even at this moment, when her life again shifts abruptly, this sublime film maintains its unhurried, quietly discerning perspective. Whether or not Lili finds her way to self-awareness is open to question. But the movie offers up all sorts of insights into the intricate workings of self-delusion and the wondrous powers of desire.