The Only Good Men Are Dead: SYLVIE ET LE FANTÔME
Rating: 👻👻
“Oh Claude!” they must have shouted, “hook me up to an IV of euphoric melancholy! Drown me in my sorrows! My youth! Oh, my youth…” Claude must’ve had no choice but to oblige, administering a movie that was nary inventive, nor all that clever, but instead a post-WWII-equivalent of a French mood board. The foreground is hollow and wasteful, but a quiet hum of grief in the background resonates profoundly to this day. Poor Sylvia.
Sylvie et le fantôme (1946) from Claude Autant-Lara is supernatural melodrama meets coming-of-age, or should we say, loss-of-youth. Ghosts, both real and fake, haunt the screen; Jacques Tati is the Real, his first credited role, while the fake is an unlikely trio of potential lovers for the titular heroine. The film concerns itself with this love triangle for a majority of the runtime, though the real interest lies solely in Sylvia as a character. Odette Joyeux (Sylvia), much like Jane Fonda in just about everything she ever did, brings a level of care to her character that is infectious, a performance filled with melancholy based in tragic knowledge of reality in spite of hope for the ideal. In a world of men attempting to control her life, her only goal is that of transcendent love. Unfortunately, the one person up to the challenge exists in spectral form. Living men dressed in sheets attempt to be the ghost of her dreams, but it’s a far cry from the real thing.
Jacques Tati’s use is frustratingly thin, playing the neutered kid-cousin of Hulot who is the hundred-year old portrait of chivalry hanging over a cobblestone fireplace. It’s obvious the filmmaker was more concerned with the ghostly effects than the character and I actively had to train myself throughout the film to recite the mantra “This is his first film. Nobody knew yet. This is his first film-”
The tone betrays itself. Often screwball, or at the very least jovial, the movie seems like it was meant to be lighthearted, escapist entertainment, in spite of the subject matter. Ghosts, unrequited love, growing up; how is my heart supposed to remain light? Too much screen time is given to the lovers and not enough content is given to Tati nor Joyeux. Story beats are cliche and tired; cinematography is nothing inspired. Yet, despite all of this, the admiration I hold for this movie knows no bounds.
I watched a childhood die in real time.
Joyeux masters the gaze of a seasoned soap actress; that floating eye trained just off-camera, its portrayal a sick sort of twist of the male gaze, not necessarily sexual, but empty and objectified. She becomes a vessel for every tragic thought the viewer has ever had. From the moment she first appears on screen and gives this look of distance, the audience knows how her story will end.
As such, I am left to mourn, remembering every scene fondly in retrospect. Maybe it was smart to include the love triangle and to portray a night of senseless shenanigans well-meant. The film itself mirrors a child growing up. At a certain point, reality sets in, and the tone drifts. You realize you’re witnessing a tragedy, and it is the fault of a bunch of men. In fact, those men are all that’s left.
Alas, the tragedy of Sylvia is that of having to settle for those fakes, the lesser men, and giving up belief in the Ideal. Give this sad song a watch on a rainy day.