My Nights are More Beautiful Than your Days

Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours; Drama, France, 1989; D: Andrzej Zulawski, S: Jacques Dutronc, Sophie Marceau, Valérie Lagrange, Myriam Mézières, Laure Killing, Sady Rebbot

Lucas is a computer expert who just invented a new computer language, but is surprised when his doctor tells him he has a rare brain disease which will attack his speech center and slowly kill him. In a cafe, he meets the young Blanche and persuades her to have diner together. She leaves with her mother to a sea resort and he follows her, renting an expensive room in the hotel. There Blanche performs in a show as a prophet of some sort, surprising the audience by guessing every detail about them. Lucas starts a relationship with her and she guesses his parents drowned in a lake. They give up on everything and go into the sea.

"My Nights are More Beautiful Than your Days" is a strange experience. Director Andrzej Zulawski is obviously a very depressed and neurotic person who likes to craft heavy, demanding dramas about chaos, madness, anger, existentialism and nihilism, yet his worldviews are crushing because his drama, emotions and characters all seem too artificial to be taken for real, while their pointless philosophical monologues can really get annoying. Yet, behind all that chaos, one somehow seems to subconsciously sense there is something more in the story about a couple who can't learn how to love or live, some deeper message. The film is filled with surreal images - Lucas sits on the middle of the street; a bellboy has a marten in his pocket; Lucas enters into a full bathtub with his clothes on; as a little kid he saw his parents swimming in the lake with naked women - many of which are completely without a head or a tail, while some actually hit the right tone, like the one where Blanche (great Sophie Marceau, in a surprising 180 degree turn on her 'innocent' child image) strips naked on the beach an starts a mental trip rolling on the sand, saying: "...love me!...teach me!" The director is obviously on a similar mental trip and very few can understand him, but he has a inspiring visual style and his subconscious thread will probably enchant some art lovers.

Grade:++