Review of Unforgivable (2011) by Eric H — 24 Feb 2015

This French drama was directed and co-written by one of the stalwarts of the French film industry Andre Techine. It has an all-star cast which includes the veteran award winning actor Andre Dussollier and the very talented Carole Bouquet.They make it out to be a much larger age difference in the movie, but Bouquet and Dussolier are in fact only twelve years apart. He just looks much older, as Carole Bouquet is youthful and extremely attractive for her age. Is it a stretch such a good looking woman would so desperately choose and want to be with him? is interested not so much in plot details as the phenomenon of characters who seek peace yet wind up in eternal conflict.Techine keeps his characters at an intimate distance from the viewer. You get to know them better with each passing season, yet they remain unknowable. Because they barely know themselves! Until the final moment, Francis isn't sure what is it he wants. He thinks it is to finish his novel. But there the novel finally is, in his own hands, and he's still unsatisfied.

As befits a film made mostly by old hands in front of and behind the camera, Unforgivable is as smoothly made, as those waters between Venice and Sant' Erasmo are choppy and unstable.