THE OTHER HOUSE

Muriel Montini, whose beautiful Adieu Mon Général was shown here in competition (FID2009), is used to literary adaptations (King Lear, a while ago), which she tackles in her own, lively and bold way, to the benefit of both the
texts and cinema. This time, Chekhov and his Three Sisters are invited to get a taste of her magic, which is always su used with great modesty. Snow-covered Russia gets transposed to France, in a ski resort near Chamonix, with its colourful clusters of skiers. The sisters are now two winter-clad women that we see
from behind, walking around among the holidaymakers, and who can be heard talking about themselves o screen. The playwright’s famous dialogues desert the actresses’ mouths to be written directly on the screen instead, like dark punctuation marks against the immaculate snow. “Literature is true life, the only life truly lived,” Proust wrote, and Muriel Montini sure takes it literally. There is no “other house” but words, and the film keeps going back and forth between the lives of her two “actresses” (whose only job is of course living), their painful past and the “lives” of Anton Chekov’s characters, always sliding along. From the white page to the powdery pistes where the anamnesis ventures, Muriel Montini rises to the challenge of glorifying maladjustment. (J.P.R.)