Though The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun provides viewers with a pretty good idea of what the basic plot may be about, it is much more difficult to pin down. The French film, directed by Joann Sfar, is rather divisive, the type of love it or hate motion picture that is rarely made in this day and age.
A beautifully visual dreamscape of a film, it pays tribute to surrealist movies of both the silent era as well as the sixties and seventies. Think Belle de Jour and Valerie and her Week of Wonders. It is also somewhat like a neo-noir, as well as an old school mystery thriller, à la Diabolique or Vertigo. Sfar utilizes a bevy of shots, angles, split-screens and other pieces of cinematic trickery to draw us in. It is like watching something made by Brian De Palma, Luis Buñuel and Alfred Hitchcock – clear aspects of each director can been seen, creating a certain visual aesthetic (we may have to throw in a little Guy Ritchie to boot). It bounces around in your head, bringing to mind horror (gothic and Giallo), fantasy, crime, drama, while also having a sort of fetishist vibe – on top of all of the other things mentioned above.
The wandering story follows Dany Dorémus (Freya Mavor), a long-legged, redheaded secretary who has always desperately wanted to see the sea. Set some forty five plus years ago, it is a time of European high fashion, sharp cars, large squarish glasses and typewriters. Her boss, Michel Caravaille (Benjamin Biolay), asks her for a favour – to finish a fifty page report that he desperately needs by the next morning (he further suggests that she stay at his house to make it more practical for everyone).
Caravaille’s wife, Anita (Stacy Martin), is a former typist and acquaintance of Dany. She is cold, tough to read and somehow sultry, her dark hair a semblance of her somber indecipherableness. Upon completing her task, Dany is convinced by the pair to drive them to the airport, after which she will return their turquoise Thunderbird to their expansive home.
Despite the instructions, she decides to take a joyride to the south of France, attempting to fulfil her lifelong dream of visiting the seaside. Along the way, she is recognized by countless individuals – Dany does not recall ever meeting any of them (as she has never made the trip). It is an uncanny experience, as they are wholly confident that they saw her make the trip (in the other direction) just the previous day. Dany begins to question herself. Is it déjà vu, mental illness, some sort of sick trick? It is a dizzying experience, a possible devolution of her psyche. Doubt and questions begin to creep into her moving-a-mile-a-minute mind.
Upon entering a gas station bathroom, she is violently attacked – though none of the men who were around can fathom how anyone could have snuck into the washroom while their eyes were so fixated upon her just a few moments before. The owner too questions her motives, as he remembers seeing her the previous day. As she continues on, she seems to make her way further down the proverbial rabbit hole. Will she be able to solve the convoluted mind game? Is there a reasonable answer to all of this? And finally, will she be able to make it to the sea?
A sort of Kafkaesque journey, she is like one of the iconic characters of the famous scribe. It raises the question of whether you will eventually transform into something you are constantly told you are, like Dany is. Does it become like a mantra, eventually getting into your head, making you truly believe in what you have been bombarded with? Like Franz Kafka’s works, this too has an illogical, nightmarish quality, a bizarre descent into a seemingly otherworldly situation.
The puzzle pieces used to create this dizzying experience are intoxicating. Vivid colours from cinematographer Manuel Dacosse (the garish reddish-orange streetlights as Dany drives late one night. . . it seems like each scene has a striking colour palette), exquisite costume selections (each outfit is pure perfection), the sporty Thunderbird, flashbacks and forwards, a mesmerizing score and selection of era tunes, exciting use of mirrors (including a subtle mirroring of the opening and closing shots), and the cast. Mavor, a Scottish actress and model who I first came across while watching the British television series Skins, does a solid job as the mysterious woman. Sfar’s camera is infatuated with her, capturing every inch of her dizzying frame. The whole film hinges on her and she succeeds. The other cast members also do solid jobs, though it is most definitely Mavor’s vehicle.
Bringing up ideas of perspective and truly observing something (which, in a way, speaks to our shortened attention spans that have been affected by distractive technologies), The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun cannot be called uninteresting. Though some have called its plot paper thin, much of it is likely part of transporting us into this surrealist world (and in a way, it may be a subtle joke on the viewer). Based upon a famous novel by Sébastien Japrisot and a remake of a 1970 version (which I cannot claim to have read or seen), it has a famous history in the realm of literature and cinema. Take a drive along with Dany into this mysteriously framed landscape to see if she has a shot at seeing seashells at the seashore.
French language with English subtitles