A Strange Place to Meet

Talk about minimal: Dupeyron's feature debut is a road movie where they only travel 10 kilometres. Deneuve, booted out of her husband's car after a row, ends up in a lay-by with Depardieu, who's mending his motor (metaphor for mending his life). They get a lift to the service station, and spend the next two days alternately chasing and repulsing each other. Deneuve's in the throes of a very heavy, possibly masochistic relationship with the man who dumped her; Depardieu is a lonely, romantic doctor who's doggedly hopeless with the opposite sex. Nothing is entirely resolved, tempting hints about the characters' lives aren't elaborated upon (is she married, mad, or a high class hooker?), and the film retains the haunting inconsequentiality of a chance encounter. The romantic protestations, set against the grim background of a plastic café, are poignant and dreamlike, the characters are drifters seeking refuge or escape, and the whole film is comic and bitter-sweet.