Frederick Wiseman is arguably the most important nonfiction documentary filmmaker currently still alive. At age 92, he has shown no signs of being any less prolific, opting for a cinéma vérité style that eschews talking heads or narration. His first fiction feature, A Couple, was therefore met with some curiosity. How would Wiseman, who normally depicts American institution with unmatched patience and deliberation, handle a film with a script? The answer is to create something that is barely a film at all.
A Couple is scarcely one hour long, and features a single performer. The French actress Nathalie Boutefeu plays Sophia Tolstoy, wife of Leo, and the script is adapted from her letters or diaries. Boutefeu talks directly into the camera, as she wanders through an admittedly gorgeous slice of the French seaside. Wiseman includes almost no music, with birds, trees and ocean providing most the sound. The cumulative effect is one of calm, almost serenity, and there is no sense of what Sophia is doing in this place.
It will not shock you to learn that Leo Tolstoy could be a total asshole. Most of the dialogue speaks of pain, so Sophia would describe Leo’s rages and their arguments. On more than one occasion, she admits that she yearns for death and even attempts suicide by wading into an ice-cold lake. Boutefeu performs the script with a mix of resignation and fierce defiance, as if she rationalizes Sophia’s despair along with her willingness to stay by her husband’s side. There are moments where she describes happiness, although we get the sense these moments are ephemeral. Mostly, Sophia is the kind of woman who is married to two people at once: Leo the husband, and Tolstoy the artist.
Despite the clarity of Wiseman’s purpose and Boutefeu’s performance, A Couple is more of a concept than a film. Perhaps it would be better suited to a video art project, or being shown in a museum. The subtext and meaning behind the letters become abundantly clear in the first 15 minutes, and despite the short runtime, for the first time Wiseman seems to pad out his work. In films like In Jackson Heights or Ex Libris, both of which are over three hours, there is a sense of a calm and momentum through the edit. In fact, what is most remarkable about his documentaries is how, despite no major focal point and imperceptible editorializing, a narrative ultimately emerges. A Couple has none of those rewards, and the confines of a script mean that Wiseman makes unfamiliar choices he cannot fully handle.
Parts of the film are deeply relaxing. Watching the French seaside, full of deep greens and gorgeous sea foam, suggest a kind of afterlife where Sophia can be only with her thoughts. Maybe that is the point of A Couple: Wiseman depicts Sophia in heaven, a place where she is free from Leo’s clutches and she can reflect on her life with a sense of relief. That kind of conceit, while tempting, is not what Wiseman prefers, since he always wants to viewer to think for themselves. The confines of the real world are a good match for his preferred ambiguity, and here the approach is more like inaction, a frustrating lack of choices or ideas.
Photo courtesy of Zipporah Films
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