Tuesday 17 May 2011

Je l'amais

They were showing French movie Je l'amais ("I loved her") on TV tonight. I read the summary: "An older man tells his daughter-in-law the story of the love of his life: a woman with who he had a
passionate affair for several years - but he was too afraid to give up his life's certainties (job, wife and children) and to follow his heart" and I just had to see the movie.
Pierre (played by Daniel Auteuil) is a married man in his 40's who travels to Hong Kong for work where he meets his (French) interpreter, beautiful Mathilde (Marie-Josée Croze). It is love at first sight (a cute scene in which the Chinese businessmen talk in Chinese: "He is falling in love with the interpreter!", "A French guy in love is dangerous!", "Let's stop the meeting and continue tomorrow") Pierre and Mathilde start a passionate relationship, meeting as often as they can and clearly are meant for each other. However, Pierre can't decide to leave his wife and children, a decision he will regret for the rest of his life. Mathilde gets pregnant and decides that, as much as she loves Pierre, she can't continue the affair. When he tells the story to his daughter-in-law more than 10 years later, he says: "I have everything. Everything. A home. A summer cottage in the mountains, Money, A wife. Two children. But I am dead. Dead".

I have so much to think about. So much.