A deeply pessimistic work of kinky realism, “By the Sea” is a bold, almost aggressive film, considering its two main actors are the most famous couple alive. Directed, written, and starring Angelina Jolie along with her husband, Brad Pitt, it’s bound to be classified as autobiographical — more out of speculation than fact — and is certain to disappoint audiences who expect their mass entertainment to be life-affirming and their stars to project an ideal version of themselves on screen.A twisting of these ideas is built into the visual construction of “By the Sea,” which features both actors striking self-consciously moody poses — the film at times comes close to looking like a perfume advertisement — as they linger around their small seaside villa. Roland (Pitt) and Vanessa (Jolie) have come to this secluded paradise in France from New York already miserable, bored, and repressing all their emotions. Roland, a novelist, is supposed to be working on his latest book, but instead goes down to the local bar and drinks heavily, all in the name of research. Vanessa, a former dancer, refuses to leave their hotel room, reading paperbacks on the terrace while she watches the same fisherman go out and come back in day after day.Vanessa’s fragility is immediately present. When she has to walk down to the local market to pick up some food, we see her in the back of the store popping pills, and her brief interactions with people are cold. Roland, on the other hand, seems calm, even when he sits at the bar with his notebook not able to produce a single word, smoke lingering from his ever-present cigarette. But tension begins to chip away at his nonchalance, and we see him waiting until is wife is asleep to come home from the bar and pass out (or throw up). When a young, recently married couple (Mélanie Laurent, Niels Arestrup) moves into the room next door, the malaise intensifies, only lessening somewhat when Roland and Vanessa discover a hole in the wall that allows them to spy on their new neighbors as they copulate.“By the Sea” builds on a quiet intensity that is due, in large part, to the pace of the film and the setting working in harmony. There’s a placid stillness to the seaside town that the film mirrors — nobody is in a rush, and neither is the narrative. But the isolation, set against the rocky cliffs on the verge of crumbling that surround the bright-blue ocean, hints at the duality at play. Under the facade of happiness rests a deep-rooted fear of losing yourself within a marriage and having no way to put together the fractured self left in its wake.There is no pure happiness anymore for Vanessa and Roland. They are older, and anything they held onto — the luxuries of literary fame for him, the life of a dancer for her — have disappeared. They can latch onto others as a way to escape, but it only lasts so long. “By the Sea” is an intelligent film about aging and relationships that only occasionally gets silly because of a few poorly written lines of dialogue. But Jolie, who is getting more interesting as a filmmaker, expands her visual language here — with clear nods to Antonioni, and well as Godard’s “Contempt” (1963) — and has made something truly surprising: a confident, unexpected film, one that refuses to budge from its harsh, and even bitter, view of the world. “By the Sea” opens in the U.S. on November 13.
↧