''A View of Love'' (french: Un balcon sur la mer, ) is a 2010 French romantic

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

written and directed by

Nicole Garcia Nicole Garcia (born 22 April 1946) is a French actress, film director and screenwriter. Her film '' Charlie Says'' was entered into the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Her film ''Going Away'' was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 20 ...

and starring

Jean Dujardin Jean Edmond Dujardin (; born 19 June 1972) is a French actor and comedian. He began his career as a stand-up comedian in Paris before guest starring in comedic television programmes and films. He first came to prominence with the cult TV series ...

. Set mainly in the south of France, it tells the story of three

pied noir The ''Pieds-Noirs'' (; ; ''Pied-Noir''), are the people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French rule from 1830 to 1962; the vast majority of whom departed for mainland France as soon as Alg ...

children parted when Algeria became independent. Years later two meet again, one a married real estate agent and the other a mysterious woman being used to defraud his firm. A recurrent parallel is with the play

Iphigénie ''Iphigénie'' is a dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by the French playwright Jean Racine. It was first performed in the Orangerie in Versailles on August 18, 1674, as part of the fifth of the royal ''Divertissements de ...

, in which the three children had acted together, where two princesses compete for the flawed hero but one dies tragically.

Plot

In the south of France, Marc Palestro is a partner in the real estate agency of his father-in-law. A client calling herself Mrs Maldonato, who is interested in buying a large old house, intrigues him. He thinks she must be Cathy, his childhood sweetheart before his family fled Algeria in 1962. Memories of that time, both the horrors of civil war and the joys of adolescent love, grip him. When he offers Mrs Maldonato a lift, she takes a dip in the sea in her underclothes and then goes to a hotel room where the two make love. She appears again to sign the preliminary contract to purchase the property. Obsessed with his first love, even though his mother tells him Cathy was killed in a bombing, Marc leaves his wife and daughter to try and find her once more. She however is the elusive front woman for a crime syndicate and is in fact an aspirant actress who is being coached in this role by Sergio Bartoli, another partner in the agency and her lover. Though she had let Marc think she was the dead Cathy, in reality she was a close friend of the pair called Marie-Jeanne and had always adored Marc. Marc discovers enough to expose Sergio's plot and then, in pouring rain, is reunited with Marie-Jeanne outside a theatre where she has secured a part.

Cast

as Marc Palestro *

Marie-Josée Croze Marie-Josée Croze (; born February 23, 1970) is a Canadian actress. She also holds French citizenship, which she obtained in December 2012. Early life Croze was born in Montreal, Quebec, was adopted, and grew up in Longueuil with four other ch ...

as "Mrs Maldonato" / "Cathy" / Marie-Jeanne *

Toni Servillo Marco Antonio Servillo (), known as Toni Servillo, is an Italian actor and theatrical director. He has won the European Film Award for Best Actor twice, in 2008 for both '' Gomorrah'' and ''Il Divo'' and in 2013 for ''The Great Beauty'', as well ...

as Sergio Bartoli *

Sandrine Kiberlain Sandrine Kiberlain (born Sandrine Kiberlajn; 25 February 1968) is a French actress and singer. Her most notable roles were in the films '' The Patriots'' (1994), '' A Self Made Hero'' (1996), ''For Sale'' (1998), ''Alias Betty'' (2001), ''Madem ...

as Clotilde, Marc's wife *

Michel Aumont Michel Henri Aumont (15 October 1936 – 28 August 2019) was a French theatre, film, and television actor. Throughout his career, he gained four Molière Awards and nominations for three César Awards. In 2015, he was made Grand Officer of the ...

as Robert Prat, Marc's father-in-law * Pauline Bélier as Emmanuelle, Marc's daughter * Jacques Valles as Jo Fuentes, Marie-Jeanne's father *

Claudia Cardinale Claude Joséphine Rose "Claudia" Cardinale (; born 15 April 1938) is an Italian actress. She has starred in some of the most iconic European films of the 1960s and 1970s, acting in Italian, French, and English. Born and raised in La Goulette, a ...

as Marc's mother * Romain Millot as Marc as a child * Solène Forveille as Cathy as a child * Emma Maynadié as Marie-Jeanne as a child * Emilie Chesnais as Patricia, secretary

Reception

Calling it a "romantic and haunting film", a French review said: :"A magnificent idea drives the story: the woman with whom he falls in love to regain his memories is not the one he thought and it is a forgotten woman who reappears …. The film gradually frees itself from the psychological mechanics to reach a kind of lyrical abstraction ….The bold stand against the current climate (Dujardin in a completely lyrical and introspective role, the vagueness of time in the story, the absolute lack of irony) makes the film even more endearing."(French)

References

External links

* French romantic drama films 2010 romantic drama films Films scored by Stephen Warbeck 2010 films 2010s French films {{2010s-romantic-drama-film-stub