Partir (Leaving)

One of my first thoughts whilst watching Catherine Corsini’s film Partir (Leaving) was of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Kristin Scott Thomas’s character gets up from the bed she shares with her husband in the middle of the night and not long after we hear a gun shot, type door slamming noise. This may not be a coincidence as the film tells the story of a wife falling out of love with her husband, although in the film she hooks up with a Spanish odd job man and hasn’t run up bad debts.
Kristin Scott Thomas gives a wonderful performance as the harassed and not entirely mentally stable Suzanne. She meets the odd job man after he’s employed to clear out a room in the family home so that she can set up a physiotherapy practice there. Passion sets in between them after an accident with her car and they begin a torrid affair. This is of course mirrored with her cold and passionless relations with her husband, which are exercises in going through the motions as much as anything else. Passion for the Spanish odd job man seems to be her main motivation for doing this, that and the fact that her husband’s a bit of a git. Well more than that he tries to hang on to his wife by exercising power over her. Actions more often than not do cause reactions. What I like about the film is that it’s a bit amoral, although there are consequences to what people do, but it doesn’t preach at you either. Ultimately, it does you good to be uncomfortable in the cinema every once in a while, especially if you’re male.