Summer Night in Town (1990) - full transcript
The whole life in one night. A young couple plays nearly any role of possible lifetime relationships.
Summer Night in Town
Rest.
Is it always like that
for you the first time?
Emilie.
It's a beautiful country
- You have a nice, name.
- My name isn't Emilie.
My name is Odile.
I don't like this name very much.
I bought these sheets
in a flea market.
In Alsace?
It's charming Odile. It's round,
clear, simple, it's you.
Don't you like yourself?
Do you like questions
because you cannot guess the answers?
Actually my name is Emilie and I think
this is a cumbersome name.
The name you were given doesn't matter,
and these sheets fit your skin.
Let me tell you a lie, but a true,
shameful one, do you want it?
I lived in a flat I didn't like and
I loved a girl who didn't like hers.
In tum we were searching
for the one we'd share.
One day, a miracle.
I visit the most perfect flat.
The one she has been dreaming of.
I'm creditworthy, the first one
on the list,
the girl of the agency likes me.
Good at her job, sly, just a little.
At that time I wouldn't have sworn it.
I take some notes, quotes.
I'm the last one to leave,
she's waiting patiently, and...
we don't leave.
We stay and make love,
a real pleasure.
At night my girl friend
is waiting for me,
I describe the flat with nostalgia:
"it's hopeless,
I'm the last one on the list".
The lowest of the low.
- She regrets, so do I.
- Liar
She comforts me, keeps confidence:
- What's important is that it can exist.
- I thought just the same.
I stayed more and more at my place, less
and less at hers and then not at all.
This is an awful story,
I thank you very much.
Are the sheets your grandmother's?
My great-grandmother's, little one
My grandmother already used to sleep
in polyester.
Are you cold, little one?
I'm never cold.
How do we do now? Help me.
This is the first time
I've brought someone home.
I always choose to go to the other's
and I slip away when not expected.
- I get dressed swiftly.
- Even the stockings?
I brush my hair,
a little kiss, it's over.
As if nothing had happened.
And how do you feel in the staircase?
Help me get you out.
You can pretend to fall asleep,
the childish way.
Or to have to get up very early,
that sounds responsible.
Or you go to the bathroom,
You make a lot of water flowing,
in the American fashion,
or you put on an old bathrobe,
"A decaf, an herbal tea?",
it feels like good friends.
I recommend it for the others,
because I'm not leaving.
I, Louis, am living with you
from tonight on.
- I won't leave you.
- Why?
Guess. I only answer with yes or no.
- Is it a bet?
- Yes.
- With whom?
- Question denied, I cannot answer.
- With me?
- Yes.
I don't bet, I can't stand losing.
If I'm sure to win, I don't enjoy it.
- You can't be sure to win.
- Answer refused. What's the stakes?
Yes or no.
All right.
Then, let's settle comfortably.
Is it a habit to settle for ever
at the woman's with whom
you've had sex for the first time?
- No.
- No.
I've several friends who shelter me
in turn. They know I can't sleep alone.
- Are you afraid?
- Cold.
Wow! How awful, your feet are frozen.
- Run quickly back to them.
- Liar.
They're nice, they have other men,
preferred ones, more regular ones.
They manage,
I complicate their lives a little.
Just a little.
- Do they know each other?
- Don't think so.
But they help me
make new acquaintances.
What I prefer is being invited
at the start or end of holiday,
to help open the house, close it.
When they gather,
sisters, cousins, girlfriends,
I listen to them, they forget me.
Then, I get closer, softly, slowly,
and they get quiet.
To make you feel
that you're importunate?
Yes
Malicious!
You ask questions
and choose the nasty ones.
This is true, then...
One afternoon
I was reading in a room...
I wasn't reading,
they're a few meters away,
I imagine them under the trees.
If I lean out, I can see them.
- But you don't?
- Of course not.
Suddenly I can hear a scratching
at my door.
An extremely attractive scratching.
The door opens,
she comes in like a princess,
naked from head to toe,
she clings to my thigh,
carelessly rummages among my things.
I look at the vein beating
at her temple,
the hollow of the neck,
the bulging belly,
the dusty feet on the cool tiles,
she's hot like the garden.
Was she your friend?
Neither my friend
nor my friend's friend,
but my friend's friend's daughter.
I put my hand on her shoulder
and this time we chatted.
Did I tell you? She was 5.
Two years later I met her again,
already too late,
she turned her nose up at me.
I might love them all together
to the end of time, one after another,
one through another, thanks to another.
I'm neither robber nor voyeur,
I'd just like them to take me
with them, do you understand?
Yes.
I'm all alone
and I don't know how to share.
- Do you understand?
- Yes
I've known it for a long time.
For a start we could tell
stories of failures?
To reassure ourselves?
You first.
One morning, a hotel at the seaside.
Everything is blue,
the sky, the mood, the bed.
The feeling you can put your foot
in the foam without having to get up.
My first beautiful hotel,
a beautiful lover- I wake up in a novel
What kind?
A novel to read at the beach,
laughing hypocritically.
What a relief
to be the heroine of a bad novel.
You've cut me short, if you get bored,
interrupt me, but after a full stop.
It was like a novel
and I wanted it to last.
I ask to stay one more day.
Unplanned, impossible.
One has to return
to Paris like everyone. So we went back.
I realized I was not the kind for whom
minutely crazy things would be done
I couldn't accept any more what
he suggested, even when I wanted it.
It offended me like charity,
or a gift received by mistake.
The untold desires killed me
in the end.
Is he dead too?
He didn't tell me.
Poor guy, exhausting himself
guessing how to please you,
and you, stubborn, closed like an oyster
on her cancer, did you make your pearl?
Does it radiate all round
from your misfortune and his?
Are you rich with that?
Show me!
It looks pretty discreet to me.
It's em pt)!
When I was little,
I promised myself to put
nothing in it that would mean
I've become attached.
Thus it's empty
You've thick hair.
You are taking all the room.
You're harsh, that was a real secret.
I also promised myself
never to tell it.
Do you often make vows of silence?
Not of chastity?
No, forgive me.
The first time I lived a long time
with a man,
I swore to hang myself
on my 20th birthday,
if I didn't manage to be happy,
from a beam of the kitchen.
I had repainted the ceiling in blue.
- Bungle it or younger than you look?
- He dumped me before my birthday.
- Thank him to have eased your life.
- I didn't think I could just leave him.
- And now would you know it?
- I don't know.
You don't know how to end stories,
so you prefer not to start them, right?
- A little.
- I'll teach you.
I don't start stories,
because they always end.
I only want stories that never end.
- Will you teach me?
- I won't venture.
Always the same story,
women never make advances to me.
- What about me earlier?
- I didn't realize.
You undress like greased lightning,
stop and say: "So what shall we do now?"
You don't make advances to me, you're
in advance of me, it's different.
Honey, shall we have a bite to eat?
Do you prefer this perhaps?
I've a friend who spent 8 days
like that when she took a lover:
How do you like your coffee,
one lump of sugar, two, three, no sugar?
She had heavy breasts,
she was bothered he might notice it.
You're not to cheat on charms,
I've the right to see
- before I stroke. Correct?
- Yes.
You behaved very well, my child.
My tum.
I took a young woman along on a trip,
she wasn't my lover,
I hoped she would be.
- It was winter...
- deserted roads, glistening snow...
hotels poorly heated, separate rooms,
not a kiss at night.
In the day?
I found her moving, all white with cold
in her ballet shoes.
Frozen feet?
No, never a complaint,
she knew how to behave.
- Looks like, what about you?
- I had fur-lined shoes.
- One evening, a knock at my door...
- She's cold.
There's a weird guy
in the next room, she's worried.
You offer her your second bed,
understanding, thoughtful,
the right man for the job,
but doesn't take advantage of it...
yet.
- You undress in the bathroom.
- No bathroom
- Do you undress?
- I couldn't...
Undress? I slept with an old sweater
and ridiculous boxer shorts.
Why put them on,
when she'd have you take them off?
How do you know? Huddled
in the little bed, a chaste look.
I packed up my things
and slept in the corridor.
Did the nasty neighbour trouble you?
Not a sign of him.
I'm ashamed for you.
Poor thing, in her best nightgown,
perfumed, dolled up,
she comes to you and you go away?
It's pathetic.
She showed her desire,
but kept her dignity.
This was my story and, now,
you told it.
So it's a failure.
I like failed stories,
it's beautiful, each time.
The first time it often fails.
Not only the first time.
It fails because it does not happen.
- Or because of the way it happens.
- You're pathetic.
Tell me.
- How did it happen the first time?
- Passing.
A few days in this kind of town
where everyone knows everyone,
I was the new girl.
I quickly inherited the fancy boy,
nice, handsome, stupid,
the right curves in the right places.
Madly in love with his car,
a small red one, short-legged,
headlights like billiard balls.
I like healthy girls,
do you like attractive cars?
No, nor the ugly ones, a hindrance.
Concerning sensations,
I prefer bikes.
Emilie, you're shameless.
Cycling is delicious,
your body unfolds,
your thighs harden,
and your sex, impregnable,
hugs the saddle prosthesis,
which reacts
to each surprise of the ground.
Aren't there any bikes
at your friends' friends'place?
Men love looking at women cycling.
Go on, I love when you touch my hair.
- And after cycling?
- There was the shower head.
Hanging out in the bath
like an adult,
you want to be clean everywhere,
thoroughly scrubbed.
The shower is hot, it tickles.
You are looking for something,
something else,
and you remain there
with your little girl's pussy
swollen, sore, unsatisfied.
Does it feel better like that?
Yet, it happened with the boy,
didn't it?
He was with a friend.
He invites us to have a coffee
at his parents'... the parents are away.
The flat?
I'll remember it all my life.
Atrocious... ly conventional.
Just entered, his friend: "Must get
something, be back in 5", and leaves.
The other one has a go to court me.
Nightmare.
I'd been too lazy to sew my suspender,
it held with a safety pin.
I wanted to protect my reputation.
I'd never thought
I had so much talent for simulation.
Supple, sensual, passionate.
One hand clutched on my suspender,
one eye on my watch,
the other to the sky... the ceiling,
imploring the gods that it ends
before the buddy comes back.
Well, obviously he didn't.
Bright one!
I was put off by boys
who keep their watch on for lovemaking.
For some time.
At school when girls
were talking about sex,
I thought it would be different for me.
I was right, it was worse.
I'd been waiting for years.
What's left to me?
An obsession with the safety pin.
MY POOL poor darling!
Wheras, it's sublime
when it comes by surprise,
the head and body blow up,
go from ignorance to the unthinkable.
You're pretty lyrical. How was she?
So strong, she pulled me
out of a dream,
I woke up to feel my orgasm,
filled with wonder.
- Are you jealous?
- Yes.
The next evening, I was hoping
the dream would be back.
I focused on the memory
of the miracle.
Then I had to come back down
to earth,
I was like everyone else,
I had to lend a hand.
- Do you like the flat?
- I don't know, I haven't been round it.
Did you see
the girl from the agency again?
Yes.
- Did you really like her?
- Yes.
She was watching me, from behind
a window. I had the street, the number,
I looked up, there she was.
Each time it was in another place.
She had the keys of empty apartments.
We camped.
We were looking for tracks.
Who had loved in those rooms?
I knew nothing about her
except she was cheerful.
I had no time
to get used to a color, a hairdo.
It was summer,
girls are fickle in summer.
I really recognized her only
when she was naked in the dark,
her smell, the warmth of her skin.
Don't touch me.
Late at night,
she opened the shutters,
the cold wind filled out her shirt,
her tits stiffened.
She leaned on the railing,
we made love in the street,
in secret.
- Then you parted?
- Yes.
Once I came on motorbike,
she asked me to take her back home.
She squeezed tight against me
as close as possible.
She crossed her hands
under my jacket,
let her skirt fly high
on her bare skin.
I could feel as she,
the heat coming up from the ground
between her open thighs.
Did you split?
Not even that.
One day she didn't call me back.
One day I looked over a house with
the man who was to live with me in it.
We'd really thought it through,
we'd even bought the curtains.
Eight days later,
he moved in with his wife.
The curtains on your arms?
No way, I left them,
there was at least 30 km of hems.
And one picture window.
I hate panoramas.
It's vulgar.
- Never had a lover on a motorbike?
- No
Never made love at night
at a window at people's you don't know?
No.
- Never had fun under the sheets?
- No
I watched my cousins in the big bed.
I was still sleeping in a small bed,
my feet were jutting out.
That wasn't the bed that was too small,
it was my feet, too big for my age.
It didn't change.
- Why didn't you have them bound?
- But I wanted to.
But the cousins had confiscated
the safety pins to caress themselves.
Here...
Openly?
- Open?
- Closed.
And you didn't want to join them,
these cousins?
- To play the nurse?
- No
They didn't find me interesting.
They said:
"if we were boys,
we wouldn't like Emilie at all."
- And you believed them?
- Yes.
The next summer,
I played at postwoman.
- Not at dressmaker?
- No.
- Do you find it weird, postwoman?
- No no, that's fine.
It looked good.
Didn't you have cousins?
Yes I did, I put them in charge
to watch from the balcony.
"Here they are!"
Idiots!
Silly bitches!
It's for them that they came.
I don't regret it,
I hate being touched.
- Do you still see your cousins?
- No
They took over the uncles' company.
Each of them, three children.
Together, 30 workers
and 300 exposure models.
And they don't have fun,
even when they do the till.
Do the cousins make you fantasize?
Imagine, on a Christmas Eve,
The husbands somewhat deserted
but satisfied.
The lame dresses,
the shoes which squeeze feet.
The children well polished
silverware too-
I, nostalgic:
"Hey, cousins
Do you still play
with the safety pins?"
What if I go and see them again?
Would you like to see them?
You won't!
I saw you.
What about you,
what were you dreaming of?
Of this.
But stop watching!
At your age!
You could ask me.
- Emilie, can I touch you?
- Yes.
Good.
Can I talk to you?
Do you like words while lovemaking?
Do you like to talk?
Do you like to hear?
You don't answer any more.
Can't you find words any more?
I could say I am taking you,
this is a simple word, a sober one.
Is that all right?
Let me do it.
I liked sucking your sex.
I could tell you, suck me off.
Suck your lips for me.
Here, now, tell me.
Do you like caressing my bum?
Not only.
Do you like my ass?
Do you want my ass?
You'll have it.
Are you leaving?
Nope, I'm having a bath.
Don't look at me like that,
it's your bathtub, not your toothbrush.
Come.
You're right.
Why is everything in the middle?
I've removed the walls,
didn't move the pipes and plugs.
Nevertheless, I've installed this.
Like this, on the days I hate myself,
like that when I feel sorry
for myself.
And on the days in between?
I don't know, I tum on the light.
And at night?
Come.
I inform you:
I already had baths after lovemaking,
I already had sex in a bathtub...
- Even so.
- And I'm tired, and...
What do you want me to do with this?
Be sweet, at this hour,
he can't see any more.
It doesn't matter, he doesn't need
to see me washing you, come.
Aren't my hands too rough?
Callous, no need for massage glove.
- Why don't you say it?
- Things you don't tell the first time.
I say, tonight your skin is like...
- Very soft skin.
- Your kind of woman?
- Possible.
- How is it?
Only know you a little.
But you know if I look like
the women you have loved?
Not at all.
Well, yes.
- So, were you waiting for me?
- We always are.
But you didn't wait!
In the meantime, you mixed me up
with others who looked like me.
So I'm your type...
it's a disheartening banality.
I like girls who don't attract me,
I like girls too sexy
who have no charm but believe they have,
they move me because they haven't any.
And those ill at ease,
playing friends in desperation.
I find in them some charm because
they haven't any, and they know it.
I don't think I have a lot of charm.
I do have some, don't I?
Yes. Beware, it will over?ow.
- I'm among those you don't like.
- Just told you, I do.
Having said the opposite.
No discipline in your logic.
So I trust you, I don't.
And what's your kind?
No idea, I haven't found it yet.
So it's not you.
The last one you didn't like before me,
what happened to him?
I left him.
- You are lucky to multiply the splits.
- Why do you say so?
I'm at your fourth story.
Lovers who love,
split, regret, search, meet again
when too late, love it, makes me cry.
This story should happen to you,
it's mathematical.
First, they weren't really splits,
as we weren't really bound.
- Where are you going?
- I'll be back.
Second, if I feel bound,
I'm the only one involved
as I don't talk about it.
- Will you talk about it?
- Certainly not, except to you, perhaps.
- I won't say more, making fun of me.
- Certainly not.
Go on, tell me about
your former lovers, I like that.
In order not to split,
just don't say it's the last time.
This time, it's too early to regret,
and then it's too late to make up.
Do you understand?
- Don't you pee sometimes in the bath?
- Yes, when you're not here.
- Anyway, give me an example.
- You won't be dishonest?
The last time with the last one,
I didn't come,
from the sadness of it,
of making love without desire,
and of having to soothe him
for his disappointment. Possible.
He didn't guess.
For me it was a final
farewell concert, so complicated.
Final and complicated,
you must have had a lot of fun.
You cannot in principle,
so that at least he leaves happy.
And you, happy with yourself?
I'm disappointed, every time.
Sol indulge myself
in a parting gift.
You're cheating, no split no gift,
possibly a tiny consolation prize.
- You, for instance?
- For instance.
Do as if I were not here.
In which column do you put me
in the balance of your moods?
Debit or credit?
Where is your account book?
In the desk drawer, on the left.
I'm glad I guessed.
You sort out, decide, mark, close.
It helps me to understand.
Why do you want
to understand everything?
Can't you accept not to understand?
I accept not to understand
why you're still in my bathtub.
If I were the nitpicking kind,
I'd say that you answered
off the point, dishonestly.
I'll rather think
I don't understand you.
I'm the kind
who doesn't understand you.
This is the first time.
This is the last time.
It's always
the last time of something.
Now it's the last time
of our first time.
- Don't bother, I don't have my glasses.
- I don't either, I see you anyway.
Even if it were
the first and last time,
it wouldn't be the first time
we have a one-night affair.
Do you want us to play the break-up?
Or shall we reconcile?
Without falling into debauchery.
Try to be a little less clumsy.
Will you dry me?
I liked it when I was little.
How was it?
Serious. I tried to be useful
to girls,
I cheated in tests
so that they could copy me.
I saw them home when it was dark
to carry their bags.
- I liked going home alone.
- How we change!
You know we change.
At school,
girls play with girls,
boys with boys.
That's what you say.
You told me you had no girl friends.
Not really.
Not right now.
Little, I pretended.
You always have to pretend
when you're little.
I listened to the others, but
I just wanted to stay near the radiator.
They told each other everything.
I'll always remember one who had
just discovered her little button.
That was America. No.
Name me an inventor.
- Christopher Columbus.
- He discovered, he didn't invent.
- The little one as well.
- But she thought she did.
She was wrong.
Had you already explored it?
- No, but I'd read books.
- Reading on the sly?
No need to hide when little,
you can't be seen.
Behind a sofa, at a
station turnstile,
at the counter of bookstores.
"Gently her hands
were undulating under the linen,
her exclusive joy
was tearing up her heart."
I I understood why my friend
Celine she was really a friend---
- Not any more?
- No.
Loved the rope.
Up at full speed,
the rope tight between her thighs,
and up there she was hanging,
in ecstasy.
The furious teacher was shaking
the rope: "Celine, will you go down?"
I remember another Celine,
we were really in love.
Too much in love to talk.
One day she came and lean next to me
on the school gate.
We are looking at the pavement
at dusk.
The only thing I found to say is:
"At what time does
the garbage truck pass?"
Are you still interested in garbage?
Because here there is room for two,
but no rubbish chute.
This one is dry.
When you sit like that,
one can see your panties.
Well, we'd see your panties.
Tonight at Bertrand's, we could.
I can describe quite accurately
the panties you had on.
Ivory, small dotted flowers,
rather indented,
and quite high.
No elastic on the sides.
Cut on the bias. Am I right?
Maniac.
But you put it under our noses.
What matters is that it pleases,
you alone know you don't mean it.
Can I have a look?
I do think that in the day
you prefer high white panties.
You should feel safe.
I wear what I like, when I like
If I were you,
I wouldn't search there.
Why, I love cupboards. I could have
while you were sleeping.
You wouldn't do that?
Is it not to be done?
I promise you it is.
- I'll tell you. Then?
- It's no.
Private life, no trespassing? By grudge
because you're upset, or on principle?
Do you want to cure me of my obsessions?
Give me one good reason.
And if it were very important to me
to open that cupboard?
If I open it, will you throw me out?
No. And if I answer yes, would it be
laziness or passion?
My risk, yours is very small,
you don't do patching up any more,
your suspender belt is really refined.
Pure cotton, pink.
Neither really big, nor really small.
Modest, not really.
Bye.
I beg you, put your glasses on,
what will be left for the children?
It suits you to be a teacher.
- They think so, too.
- Especially when they leave school.
I didn't like school
and I've stayed there.
I write with chalk, I wear an overall,
like nobody does any more.
It's strange to be faithful
to what you didn't like.
- But you went to the other side.
- It seems so.
I still go there to watch and learn.
You have starched curtains!
- I like it when it's smooth.
- And you don't like ironing.
- No.
- You see there's no logic in pleasure.
I, too,
can put my hands in your pants.
Can be done.
I don't put my hand in your panties,
I'd rather guess through them.
My finger follows the elastic
where it bites the skin.
I go down.
The birth of the thigh,
where the skin is already
becoming softer.
I touch your pussy,
rounded
trapped by the cloth.
Can you feel it?
My fingers caress your lips.
One...
and then the other.
They pa rt.
Don't touch me.
What's happening?
Don't you feel safe?
I like your panties
because it's a gate.
So what you give me
is even more valuable.
Do you give it or let me take it?
Do you like that I want to go
even further into your secrets?
Or haven't you thought about it yet?
You have a lump in your throat.
Yes, I know...
- Bastard, sadistic.
- You take advantage of it.
To answer for me.
It's hard to hide a desire...
for a man
- I was going to enter Polytechnic.
- Liar.
For the annual ball,
hired by the school newspaper.
First in Maths, average in French.
Waltz? Not marked, but...
I subscribe to a course, thinking,
I can dream one might be appealed.
Calculator!
I summarize, the rhythm,
the sliding of feet...
Could I once
make love to you like this,
simply pushing aside your panties?
The teacher moves into position,
she wasn't my type, but still a woman.
Dreadful, I'm starting
to have a hard-on.
I dodge, I undulate,
- unable to enjoy, to lie, to calculate.
- And above all to consent.
She insists on giving me
major thrusts:
"You have to push with the pelvis, boy.
The pelvis!"
Shall we go back to bed darling?
I am asleep on my feet.
What about children?
- What children?
- We didn't mention children.
- I was watching if you smell of baby.
- You sniffed.
There is no indecency
in a woman who breastfeeds.
It's natural, innocent,
not erotic at all.
The general opinion.
I think it's terribly arousing,
does it bother you?
No.
Ever seen at the hospital,
pregnant women, in a well ordered queue,
with their little belly, where everyone
will stick his nose? Looks like a herd.
- I'll mount guard.
- One knocks at the door of the room,
enters without letting you say
"come in", speaks gaga:
"How is she this morning,
did she sleep well?"
As if it were you in the cradle.
It's offensive.
- You'll have a private barn.
- It'll be paradise.
What did you say?
Nothing. I thought of something,
but didn't say it.
Say it.
Birth, barn, crib, paradise.
- Do I think I am the Blessed Virgin?
- I wouldn't put it like that.
- I don't think I am like the others?
- Yes.
- Right, you're not like the others.
- Yes, I know, thank you.
- Will I make you extraordinary babies?
- Obviously.
You are like the others,
you're really made to be a dad. At last.
For tonight, it'll be fine.
Will she look like you?
It's you who looked like her
when you were a baby.
I'll recognize you,
though I haven't known you.
- Do you have photos of you to compare?
- Too late.
Next time you will give us a boy.
I can't wait to watch her growing up.
I think I'll mix you up.
When one of you comes near me, I won't
know which one if I don't look up.
Afraid of being aroused,
as by a stranger.
Classic. You'll make do
with her friends.
Yet I'll feel nostalgic
for the nursery school.
The gates opening,
and she, who threw herself at me.
If I pick her up at high school,
will she still run to me?
You know how to tell stories.
She won't.
A little kiss in the morning,
a smile occasionally.
She stays a long time at the window,
she's waiting.
And what is she looking at?
It depends.
From here the street.
The lives behind
the small square of light.
She thinks she also lives
in a small square of light,
and she doesn't know her life.
Then she looks at the garden,
which has become very small
since she's grown up.
- And the boys across the street?
- Incessantly.
She wonders if one can look
more intensely.
Yet she doesn't guess
she wants to join them.
Why doesn't she ask,
the little arrogant?
If they don't guess,
they don't want her hard enough,
then she doesn't want them.
When she crosses the street,
not even a smile.
"They live in the neighbourhood?
I haven't noticed."
She still hangs about the streets,
you reassure me.
She goes to the haberdasher's
to buy a pair of stockings.
Her granny bought her a suspender belt,
because she hates tights.
It's rough, too tight,
it cuts the lips.
She wants to keep
her upper thighs naked,
to feel the cold on her skin.
- This is why you often wear socks?
- There aren't 50 solutions.
But then,
at Grandma's, the still holiday,
in the still house, in the still
village, in the still summer,
she moves.
She goes to the mirror
to put on her stockings.
Show me.
Tum on the light!
Do you think she is moved,
that she'll caress herself?
Certainly not.
I don't remember if I was pretty.
I should have had nice breasts.
All 13 year old girls
have nice breasts.
I didn't look at them.
Nobody looked at them.
One evening,
in the bathroom,
I looked at my penis,
and I started to get hard.
I was nine.
Every night, only to look at it,
I had a hard-on, for no one.
Poor baby.
What if I open the door of the bathroom
and I catch him in the act?
All stiff, proud and lost,
what can I do?
Go away on tiptoe.
Won't you tum into
a terrible mother?
Gone the days you cuddled his penis,
kneaded his thighs and buttocks, with
complete impunity since he's your baby.
You won't know she's been wondering
for hours in front of the mirror.
Sometimes she makes herself cry.
And she looks at herself.
She tries to understand.
It's sad not to have
the right to soothe.
It's because we'll be old.
They'll be themselves,
neither you nor I any more.
- Everyone for oneself, then.
- Everyone for oneself.
Good.
Could I borrow your sweater?
Thanks for the toothbrush, wouldn't you
have something that covers a bit more?
In the bathroom's cupboard...
Can you see which one?
There're old tracksuits,
I always buy them too big.
You've got old.
- Your hearing is worse than before.
- Nobody in the building right now.
And me?
- 1: Prohibition to listen too loud.
- 2: Or the same piece 10 times.
To listen to music at night
when the other's asleep.
- To read in bed.
- To eat in bed, spreading crumbs.
To dine out.
Too sad.
Couples who only comment
on the dishes. Too risky.
- Beyond the menu they argue?
- Wrangle, quibble, quarrel.
That's later.
"I forgot my drops."
"Should never have chosen that,
too heavy."
"ls softer at home."
- "You got parsley between your teeth."
- We won't grow old like that.
Then, I don't stay. I'll stay with you
to be like everyone else.
At night I watch couples locked in
their little box on wheels, I like it.
Prohibition to be scared in cars.
Carsickness?
No, authorized.
Bad moods, prohibited.
Moods, biles, black biles,
phlegm, blood...
You've to get used to my smells.
Do I smell?
Forgive me, Holy Emilie, but you do.
Even when you make love,
your mouth's a peculiar smell.
Good.
If it was unpleasant,
I wouldn't have said it.
I can't trust you.
Masochist.
What's more I can't be smelly
any more, to be a louse.
Be a louse on purpose.
No right to blame me
for looking and stinking like one.
No way, I'm not a masochist.
I have thought about it. Me neither.
No, I won't make it.
It's too hard.
Do you want to stay alone.
You stay here because you don't have
the courage to go home.
Don't you have the courage
to send me back any more?
Do you want me to help you?
To make me stay?
What's the program?
A: Send back Louis
who wasn't unpleasant all the time.
B: Keep Louis but
there'll be inconvenience.
C: Do not want to choose,
even better, not be able to choose.
I'll tie you up.
- Well, stake you up.
- What?
Stake.
Horticultural meaning, of course.
To put a stake, a professional job.
L am a nurseryman
The serene despair of old couples,
threatening, threatening.
Describe me a view of the outside
in daylight.
- You'll laugh.
- I am not so sure.
I am walking naked in a meadow,
on the edge of a wood,
I hold a naked woman's hand,
and one child,
two, three.
Naked?
- I haven't laughed.
- You should have.
Walking in tall grass,
up to the thighs.
The grass is dry, crunches,
scratches.
No, it's deep green.
It brushes, opens under the steps, if I
think hard about it, it's very exciting.
- What else?
- Lapping.
Water, very small.
A puddle sucked by the sand,
a dike licked by the swell.
Even a muddy pond,
a black hole with water in winter,
bare trees reflected in it.
There's a pond where I work.
Will the children play safely there?
No.
There's always some danger.
Yes.
I feel better.
Does seducing reassure you?
Before, yes, it did, now, not at all.
What about you?
A man in love makes
you feel more lovely.
Isn't it lovely to be loved,
you don't keep this pleasure
for yourself. It'd be mean.
It's more fun to play in pairs.
Why not three?
I don't know how
to adjust 3 side mirrors.
And I'm not a man in love.
And I'm not sure that
I love to be loved.
But I like it
when you stroke my hair.
My neighbour is a redhead.
I sometimes see her in the street.
Not often enough.
To meet the eyes of a woman
who comes to you.
Right, you don't see them.
Neither do you.
So what do you look at first?
- I'm only curious to meet.
- The naked truth.
You see evil everywhere.
It's too late to slip away,
as soon as I've caught her eyes.
That's the way to say it, isn't it?
At the airport, waiting to board,
not a word.
I know nothing about her.
She's alone.
On the plane, the blinds are down,
people're sleeping.
I feel like talking to her.
I sit next to her.
We're still not talking.
I'm going to kiss her.
How?
More.
No more.
And on arrival?
There is my wife and my daughter,
we've said the eldest was a girl.
They're waiting for me.
I'm so happy to see them again.
Do you remember?
What about the passenger?
She's passing by.
It's a tiny tear, an exquisite pain.
All's well. I missed you so much.
What if you'd wait for me
with the baby?
The man who kissed me on the plane,
I can't even make him out
from the other passengers.
Emilie, please,
it was so sweet to have cheated on you
just a little bit.
Seen from down here,
the cupboard looks huge.
- You've opened it right away.
- I shouldn't have?
It's a secret lock, I can never
open as it should.
I'd the same one in my room.
A little large for the low-budget flats.
When we came to town, we had to sell it.
So you bought it.
But you've kept your family
well hidden from me.
Grandfather?
Grandad?
Grandpa?
Great-grandpa.
Renoir, Auguste.
He didn't bungle his lilium candidum!
What about your grandmother?
I couldn't pin them, it's been so long
since I grew old at her side.
At the nursery, I helped
my grandma to cut dahlias for markets.
She grew dahlias taller than me
As I can't make them as tall,
I try larger.
This summer, I've got some
as big as cabbages.
Is the nursery yours now?
- Half mine, half Credit Agricole.
- I'd like to visit it.
I didn't expect that...
Right now, sweetie, as soon as
I've finished exploring my cupboard.
The really important things,
I used to write them
on a very thin little piece of paper.
I removed the dowel.
I rolled the paper.
I put the dowel back.
Tell me something important.
I love Dominique.
I watched her at night,
she watched me.
She lived in a gray house
with a glass door.
She was standing at the end of the hall,
frozen, lights on.
And one night she did it.
She lifted up her nightgown
and showed me her breasts.
You saw the rest too.
There's nothing left.
The door was only half-glazed, it
lifted up only half of the mystery.
Un sein - A breast. I thought
it was spelled like the villages,
Saint-Martin, Saint-Jacques...
It was as sacred as catechism.
The mystery remained unsolved
around the hole.
The butcher's son had told us: "there
are two ways to make love,
from the front, from behind".
It was still very obscure.
The other stack first.
This is where I kept
my favourite actress.
An American one in leopard bikini.
But my mother burned it up.
It was suggestive enough,
but didn't suggest enough.
The first time I did like in films.
Lips glued together,
Bodies rubbing one another.
She knew more than me about theory
but not about practice.
She wasn't pleased with me.
- Eventually I learned on the job.
- One after the other.
Here.
To think that now you're collapsing
under images. And no half-measure.
Do you mean hard pom?
Yes.
And I can't help
finding them beautiful.
I can hear your belly beating.
Come and sleep with me.
I promise I won't look at you.
Were you looking for me?
I was dreaming
that you were looking at me sleeping.
What are you doing?
I'm practicing crossing the apartment
getting in and out of your room
without waking you up.
Wish me good night.
On entering or leaving?
You said you wouldn't leave.
That I'll be here forever doesn't
mean I won't leave from time to time.
Now?
I save some of the night for myself and
when you're sleeping you don't miss me.
Why do you enjoy upsetting me?
This is not the time to have fun, nor
to whine any more. Have I scratched you?
Your knees hurt
because you aren't comfortable,
No need to add discomfort to cruelty.
What's happening?
What are you going to tell them
when you come back?
Those from your previous life,
who never knew you had left them?
Sit down, like everyone else.
That you aren't free tonight,
they should call back later.
Are you going to buy an answering
machine, saying you've been sent abroad?
You've probably practiced
farewell letters.
Enough humor and discreet emotion
to leave a nice memory.
Something like that.
Will you do it?
- Yes.
- Why?
For myself.
The big sharp knife
dipped in the inkwell.
Do you know how to cut chicken?
And to bite into a peach without
splashing my neighbors, and peel a pear.
But we could eat on oilcloth and use
paper towel to blot out the damage...
What damage? I hate carelessness and
waste, whereby I can invite myself.
I wouldn't have wanted that you bother,
but if it's for you...
- You won't help me
- I will, not to rush things.
- To leave myself a way out.
- Why rushing?
- Destroy what will wear out by itself.
- Yes, why?
Patience.
You like blazes when I don't even want
to leave a trace.
Your eyes are shining.
It suits you, why are you hiding it?
I know how to heal scratched knees,
how to blow when it bums
or to dry the tears.
There are dangerous grounds,
my little one.
Watch out where you put your feet.
If you cried, I'd take all your tears,
even the fake ones,
because you aren't crying for me,
you are crying over all the other ones
that you are losing.
Patience.
You'll cry one day with another woman
while remembering me.
You're sweet, Emilie,
you'll devour me like the others.
- Those before me?
- Those before me,
as you'll devour
those you'll meet after me.
- You don't know me.
- You don't know yourself.
But you're like the others. Greedy.
- You'll remember how happy it was.
- It wasn't happy.
You were suspicious.
You didn't want to let yourself go.
You're reassured with me.
You'll go back to it.
To impress, to surprise, to unmask.
You all go back to it.
- So she told you?
- She told me the one before,
she'll tell me about the next one,
if she's close. You'll do it as well.
- Never.
- You've told me about the ones before,
you'll tell me about the ones after.
Haven't you learned?
Never say never.
You'll come to share.
How would you do with your little
broken heart, forced to lie,
prostrate with injustice because
you've the right to love everything?
The stolen kisses, the lack of time,
the risky reunions,
the unknown rooms,
and my familiar tread,
my smell
the smell of the bread I toast for you,
while taking my place on the pillow.
Will you agree to it?
What will it take?
Just a little jealousy, to be correct?
That you showed your panties
to anyone a little earlier,
I don't even know
how it makes me feel.
I hate myself...
You'll have so many reasons
to hate me.
I already have them, I know you'll cheat
on me, it'll be fun with the new ones,
fun to go out at night in secret
and spit me out all the good lays.
That's convenient, I don't like men who
cry, I like irresponsible ones, idiots,
elusive ones,
singles with multiple partners,
I hate invaders.
I'm getting up very early tomorrow.
Coffee or tea?
A hot milk with sugar
and a little rum. I'll prepare it.
I'll go to bed. Don't wake up
the whole house when you leave.
Are you gone?
Stop trembling.
You could very well.
I like to tremble. It took me years
to get there, I'll go on.
Bite me.
Help yourself to me.
My wild one.
My fragile one.
I want you not
to refuse yourself anything.
Is it because they didn't want you
that you prefer me?
Yes.
I'd rather have it this way.
I'm hungry
I'll take care of the snack,
it'll be splendid.
Warm up some milk,
I like it hot and I hate skin.
Will you bring it to me?
Should I get up?
I can't hear.
Can you tum it up a little?
Ready!
Isn't it hot enough?
It comes over me at times.
The last time was in the street.
I was lucky, it was raining,
it was really late.
- A long time ago?
- I forgot.
I'd left a ridiculous,
stupid, hateful party.
- Somewhat disappointing, I'd say.
- Yes.
Sometimes, I still believe,
I try to do everything properly,
All matched, tweaked, my finger to the
doorbell... and it's already a failure.
- Did you ring?
- No.
There were guests coming up, I darted to
the next ?oor, listened a bit, then...
You ran away.
I'm not sociable.
This is a reason not to impose it
on society.
Reminder. Sorry. Go on.
I went back down the street,
I was walking, kicking the cobbles,
I was thinking, "Well done,
done for your shoes. Soaked."
Two great feet stopped me,
and a voice said:
"Where are you going alone,
in this state?"
I was all smeared, I said,
my head in my heels:
"I'm going home."
He puts his arm around me,
he takes my bag and says:
"I'll take you home."
He immediately found the keys.
He put some music on.
He washed me, dried me
and put me to bed.
He gave me a lime tea.
He tucked me in.
He said:
"I'll tidy up the kitchen a little.
I'll slam the door behind me."
I said, yes.
I fell asleep.
But it's me!
Are you sure it wasn't me?
What did he have that I don't,
except he's gone?
He was dressed all in black.
He was all black from head to foot.
It can be fixed.
And why did you invite me?
- And why did you come home with me?
- You first.
- Always me.
- I know.
I watched you questioning,
speaking little, listening a lot.
Everyone answers you, happy to pour out,
it's so interesting to interest.
And as I'm interested...
You didn't ask anything to me.
Your tum.
I watched you talking, a lot.
You speak softly
and you make people laugh.
So you pour out mean things,
sharp tongue, soft lips,
you know you look great.
- Didn't I?
- You did.
But you didn't tell me anything,
I wanted to have a closer look.
Was it desire?
Curiosity.
To know if we'll have some.
- Desire?
- Yes.
I have a small idea,
of a small beginning of an answer,
shall I say it to you now
or keep it for next time?
Deuce.
Let's give ourselves
one minute of silence.
What is desire for you?
It's when my body is curling up
for being alone.
When my womb is tightening for lack.
This lack fills my head.
Absorbs all my strength.
It is to be full of a lack.
- But since I'm here...
- Since you'll leave...
It's holding you prisoner inside me.
Keeping your smell on my lips,
on my fingers.
To stay open,
slippery,
warm.
From me?
Yes, I think.
What is it for you?
I'm thinking about it.
I talk to an academic...
You have the typical
academic's profile.
Desire.
Is it lust?
But desire is nicer, richer,
more subtle.
"I want a cigarette".
I don't smoke, I am doing a metaphor.
The word desire is enough.
A woman.
I want to know her.
To get close.
To touch her.
To caress her.
To kiss her.
Stop.
To desire her is the desire
to make love to her. Purely physical.
When it's purely physical, it's very
pure, otherwise it's already less clear
Stop.
- Go on.
- I will.
Desire is a need very hard
not to meet,
never mind if it isn't
with the one you desire.
I'm asked: "What can I do for you?"
I reply: "I'll have..."
Soto desire is to want.
I could also reply: "I'd love..."
Soto want is to love.
"I love you", in Spanish,
is "I want you", it saves time.
When you desire, you want, when you
want, you love, from the time of desire.
Unless the desire comes so suddenly
you haven't had the time to love.
Unless what you love is to desire.
Imagine, here, close,
a woman, a stranger.
Will I desire to desire her?
No doubt?
No doubt.
Some points to be specified, but a great
way not to deal with the subject.
Not to deal with it as you expected.
Did I fail?
The beating heart,
the expectation of the stranger...
But you have a girl's heart,
dear sir, congratulations.
Are you used to the old one
who snores?
Stay curious,
it's essential at your age.
You may be leaving someone?
- I can't refrain from dreaming.
- So you confess.
If I say it, I betray myself,
if I remain silent, I betray you.
You are also dreaming
of something else.
You dreamed of iced milk.
Very objectively,
our case is hopeless.
Doctor, don't make me be a broken man,
condemned to live the atrocious reality.
When I feel empty, a passing woman,
an intimacy to guess keeps me alive.
- Do you ever feel you're dead?
- We'll talk about it later. You?
Yes.
It's too early to talk about it now.
Silence.
Reluctant? Resigned?
Embarrassed?
Coward?
As you wish.
I'm afraid, I don't know you.
They say I'm scary sometimes.
Funny, isn't it?
No.
- Am I scaring you?
- Sure.
- Why do we wish for meetings.
- Because it's frightening.
And it's so delicious to be in love.
It bothers me to be in love.
Me too.
I stay at the bedside of the girl
I've just kissed,
I can't free myself,
I feel like crying.
I moan, I contradict myself...
- I...
- contradict you.
I'll end up jealous.
You're imagining things.
It won't last.
- If it doesn't last, better to stop.
- No.
If it doesn't last,
not worth stopping it.
- While it lasts, it's something.
- I think we agree.
Shall we change the subject?
What are you growing now?
Marigolds, pansies. Colourful.
I'll bring you some.
It almost fell down.
Don't bother, I'll clean up tomorrow.
Zounds, hard work never did
anyone any harm.
Feet in mud, summer like winter.
Still, cold hands, warm heart.
- Growing?
- Growing, sprouting.
All good things come to he who waits.
April showers bring forth
May flowers.
All in all,
I don't find you funny at all.
Me neither, I don't find myself funny.
And you're not funny every day.
You're rather tragic,
yet that would be funny.
I don't like jokes.
- Don't you understand them?
- This is exactly what I'm saying.
But did you understand
it wasn't a joke?
I leave you the choice:
lover, friend, husband.
At least the three of them
to start with.
I didn't ask anything.
Perhaps we should do things in order.
First we are lovers, later we get
married, then we stay friends.
We'd play cards.
- What are you doing?
- I play alone.
- Usually, there's the model.
- Well, there's none.
Let's stay lovers,
if that reassures you.
To your friends
at the horticultural fair:
"So, ol' Louis, still
th' same bird?" What's your answer?
I'd swap, but they wouldn't get it.
New broom sweeps clean.
I won't wait for you my guy.
Won't! Bird in th' hand's worth
two in th' bush.
- He who hesitates is lost. She's left.
- With whom?
Didn't say. Wanted to talk to Louis,
'cause 'e was her bloke, gone too.
- But were engaged.
- Looks like changed their minds.
Well, I'll make every effort.
With some time,
I'll make a deserving husband.
There's no merit in love.
No justice,
all's required from the same one.
- This is abuse of power.
- It's chain.
You'll see, you'll become attached.
Out of curiosity, say, we're married,
I leave, do you come to take me back?
Certainly.
Just explain!
Louie's sigh.
He thinks she's incorrigible.
Emilie's sigh.
She knows she is.
What does it represent?
This is old.
A landscape.
- Empty?
- I hope so.
It's so restless everywhere.
If you'd leave, I'd wait for you
at home, in case it would go wrong.
When you have someone to cheat on,
it's stronger.
You'll be more excited.
I go home, to find you just as
I've left you: "Look, it's Emilie".
She'll be happy, I watered her picture
every morning, it's perfectly fine-
Good for you, because when I leave,
I don't come back.
No model.
No merit.
No false start, no hope of return,
and it has to last forever.
Well, we won't get bored!
You know, I'm never bored.
You could travel,
we've already talked about it.
Not far away, Emilie.
Without losing sight of you.
A friend's gift.
Painter?
Gone?
There's something you should try,
it's to improvise
a little anger, modest,
nothing tragic nor irreparable.
For you to comfort me?
You couldn't refuse it to me.
We'd make peace in bed. Poor one,
you didn't invent anything.
You've already made me cry,
now I'm busy.
I'm going too far, explode, beat me!
I'll scream. I'll make you feel sorry,
you won't be able to send me home.
You're cheating.
All right, I've cheated, please,
help me to stay.
I'm quietly taking off my glasses
and I'm going to bed.
- I'll have tried everything.
- Yet you had a chance 'cause I'm tired,
but as everything is spoiled,
I can admit it, I'm very angry.
I'd like to see you wither on the vine,
I hope you'll die on your dung.
I'm dreaming of hurting you.
I'm not dreaming it any more,
it's done.
I know how to hurt you, even
if you can hide it, I like to hurt you.
- Now do you feel avenged?
- Why say that, I never do, even tired.
Why do you say "hurt"?
It's not a nice dream, I was leaving,
but I can't let you have bad dreams.
Don't bother, it's dawn.
Nevertheless you look dark.
Any hospitality?
I want to be alone.
I want to walk.
I would like a clearing
with a straight red-trunked pine tree.
The cuts in its bark,
as deep as rifts.
And moss as high as a forest
because I am so close.
My face leaning on the tree.
I would like to knot my body
around it.
I let my body slide
to the needled ground.
Brown, moist, soft.
Just a broken branch,
a stone to resist my womb.
The light is warm,
washed.
My eyes shut,
the taste of earth in my mouth.
I caress myself.
I come.
When my hand leaves my lips,
it is hot,
sprinkled with mist,
as when you talk in the cold.
The distant landscape is misted over
with the rising heat of dawn.
- I am all mine and I...
- No.
No.
You want an encounter.
Tell me.
I walk by your side in a forest,
we reach a clearing,
I do not know who you are.
You look at me.
I guess you have guessed me.
You wait.
You lean on a tree, I lean on you.
You are wearing a full skirt.
I raise it up to the waist.
I hold your waist in my hands.
You keep your legs straight,
and you spread them just a little
to let my hand caress you.
Your eyes are closed.
You are defenseless.
You let me kiss your lips,
it tastes of the earth.
You're wet as a spring.
Now if you want, I'll take you,
lose myself completely in you.
Yes.
Say it.
I want you to stay with me.
- Do you love me?
- Yes.
Say it.
I love you.
It is a start.
What is it going to happen to us?
We sleep.
It has happened to us.
- To say yes to each other?
- Yes.
Yes.
Come on, let's fall asleep.
Together.
Subtitles: frenchsub
Rest.
Is it always like that
for you the first time?
Emilie.
It's a beautiful country
- You have a nice, name.
- My name isn't Emilie.
My name is Odile.
I don't like this name very much.
I bought these sheets
in a flea market.
In Alsace?
It's charming Odile. It's round,
clear, simple, it's you.
Don't you like yourself?
Do you like questions
because you cannot guess the answers?
Actually my name is Emilie and I think
this is a cumbersome name.
The name you were given doesn't matter,
and these sheets fit your skin.
Let me tell you a lie, but a true,
shameful one, do you want it?
I lived in a flat I didn't like and
I loved a girl who didn't like hers.
In tum we were searching
for the one we'd share.
One day, a miracle.
I visit the most perfect flat.
The one she has been dreaming of.
I'm creditworthy, the first one
on the list,
the girl of the agency likes me.
Good at her job, sly, just a little.
At that time I wouldn't have sworn it.
I take some notes, quotes.
I'm the last one to leave,
she's waiting patiently, and...
we don't leave.
We stay and make love,
a real pleasure.
At night my girl friend
is waiting for me,
I describe the flat with nostalgia:
"it's hopeless,
I'm the last one on the list".
The lowest of the low.
- She regrets, so do I.
- Liar
She comforts me, keeps confidence:
- What's important is that it can exist.
- I thought just the same.
I stayed more and more at my place, less
and less at hers and then not at all.
This is an awful story,
I thank you very much.
Are the sheets your grandmother's?
My great-grandmother's, little one
My grandmother already used to sleep
in polyester.
Are you cold, little one?
I'm never cold.
How do we do now? Help me.
This is the first time
I've brought someone home.
I always choose to go to the other's
and I slip away when not expected.
- I get dressed swiftly.
- Even the stockings?
I brush my hair,
a little kiss, it's over.
As if nothing had happened.
And how do you feel in the staircase?
Help me get you out.
You can pretend to fall asleep,
the childish way.
Or to have to get up very early,
that sounds responsible.
Or you go to the bathroom,
You make a lot of water flowing,
in the American fashion,
or you put on an old bathrobe,
"A decaf, an herbal tea?",
it feels like good friends.
I recommend it for the others,
because I'm not leaving.
I, Louis, am living with you
from tonight on.
- I won't leave you.
- Why?
Guess. I only answer with yes or no.
- Is it a bet?
- Yes.
- With whom?
- Question denied, I cannot answer.
- With me?
- Yes.
I don't bet, I can't stand losing.
If I'm sure to win, I don't enjoy it.
- You can't be sure to win.
- Answer refused. What's the stakes?
Yes or no.
All right.
Then, let's settle comfortably.
Is it a habit to settle for ever
at the woman's with whom
you've had sex for the first time?
- No.
- No.
I've several friends who shelter me
in turn. They know I can't sleep alone.
- Are you afraid?
- Cold.
Wow! How awful, your feet are frozen.
- Run quickly back to them.
- Liar.
They're nice, they have other men,
preferred ones, more regular ones.
They manage,
I complicate their lives a little.
Just a little.
- Do they know each other?
- Don't think so.
But they help me
make new acquaintances.
What I prefer is being invited
at the start or end of holiday,
to help open the house, close it.
When they gather,
sisters, cousins, girlfriends,
I listen to them, they forget me.
Then, I get closer, softly, slowly,
and they get quiet.
To make you feel
that you're importunate?
Yes
Malicious!
You ask questions
and choose the nasty ones.
This is true, then...
One afternoon
I was reading in a room...
I wasn't reading,
they're a few meters away,
I imagine them under the trees.
If I lean out, I can see them.
- But you don't?
- Of course not.
Suddenly I can hear a scratching
at my door.
An extremely attractive scratching.
The door opens,
she comes in like a princess,
naked from head to toe,
she clings to my thigh,
carelessly rummages among my things.
I look at the vein beating
at her temple,
the hollow of the neck,
the bulging belly,
the dusty feet on the cool tiles,
she's hot like the garden.
Was she your friend?
Neither my friend
nor my friend's friend,
but my friend's friend's daughter.
I put my hand on her shoulder
and this time we chatted.
Did I tell you? She was 5.
Two years later I met her again,
already too late,
she turned her nose up at me.
I might love them all together
to the end of time, one after another,
one through another, thanks to another.
I'm neither robber nor voyeur,
I'd just like them to take me
with them, do you understand?
Yes.
I'm all alone
and I don't know how to share.
- Do you understand?
- Yes
I've known it for a long time.
For a start we could tell
stories of failures?
To reassure ourselves?
You first.
One morning, a hotel at the seaside.
Everything is blue,
the sky, the mood, the bed.
The feeling you can put your foot
in the foam without having to get up.
My first beautiful hotel,
a beautiful lover- I wake up in a novel
What kind?
A novel to read at the beach,
laughing hypocritically.
What a relief
to be the heroine of a bad novel.
You've cut me short, if you get bored,
interrupt me, but after a full stop.
It was like a novel
and I wanted it to last.
I ask to stay one more day.
Unplanned, impossible.
One has to return
to Paris like everyone. So we went back.
I realized I was not the kind for whom
minutely crazy things would be done
I couldn't accept any more what
he suggested, even when I wanted it.
It offended me like charity,
or a gift received by mistake.
The untold desires killed me
in the end.
Is he dead too?
He didn't tell me.
Poor guy, exhausting himself
guessing how to please you,
and you, stubborn, closed like an oyster
on her cancer, did you make your pearl?
Does it radiate all round
from your misfortune and his?
Are you rich with that?
Show me!
It looks pretty discreet to me.
It's em pt)!
When I was little,
I promised myself to put
nothing in it that would mean
I've become attached.
Thus it's empty
You've thick hair.
You are taking all the room.
You're harsh, that was a real secret.
I also promised myself
never to tell it.
Do you often make vows of silence?
Not of chastity?
No, forgive me.
The first time I lived a long time
with a man,
I swore to hang myself
on my 20th birthday,
if I didn't manage to be happy,
from a beam of the kitchen.
I had repainted the ceiling in blue.
- Bungle it or younger than you look?
- He dumped me before my birthday.
- Thank him to have eased your life.
- I didn't think I could just leave him.
- And now would you know it?
- I don't know.
You don't know how to end stories,
so you prefer not to start them, right?
- A little.
- I'll teach you.
I don't start stories,
because they always end.
I only want stories that never end.
- Will you teach me?
- I won't venture.
Always the same story,
women never make advances to me.
- What about me earlier?
- I didn't realize.
You undress like greased lightning,
stop and say: "So what shall we do now?"
You don't make advances to me, you're
in advance of me, it's different.
Honey, shall we have a bite to eat?
Do you prefer this perhaps?
I've a friend who spent 8 days
like that when she took a lover:
How do you like your coffee,
one lump of sugar, two, three, no sugar?
She had heavy breasts,
she was bothered he might notice it.
You're not to cheat on charms,
I've the right to see
- before I stroke. Correct?
- Yes.
You behaved very well, my child.
My tum.
I took a young woman along on a trip,
she wasn't my lover,
I hoped she would be.
- It was winter...
- deserted roads, glistening snow...
hotels poorly heated, separate rooms,
not a kiss at night.
In the day?
I found her moving, all white with cold
in her ballet shoes.
Frozen feet?
No, never a complaint,
she knew how to behave.
- Looks like, what about you?
- I had fur-lined shoes.
- One evening, a knock at my door...
- She's cold.
There's a weird guy
in the next room, she's worried.
You offer her your second bed,
understanding, thoughtful,
the right man for the job,
but doesn't take advantage of it...
yet.
- You undress in the bathroom.
- No bathroom
- Do you undress?
- I couldn't...
Undress? I slept with an old sweater
and ridiculous boxer shorts.
Why put them on,
when she'd have you take them off?
How do you know? Huddled
in the little bed, a chaste look.
I packed up my things
and slept in the corridor.
Did the nasty neighbour trouble you?
Not a sign of him.
I'm ashamed for you.
Poor thing, in her best nightgown,
perfumed, dolled up,
she comes to you and you go away?
It's pathetic.
She showed her desire,
but kept her dignity.
This was my story and, now,
you told it.
So it's a failure.
I like failed stories,
it's beautiful, each time.
The first time it often fails.
Not only the first time.
It fails because it does not happen.
- Or because of the way it happens.
- You're pathetic.
Tell me.
- How did it happen the first time?
- Passing.
A few days in this kind of town
where everyone knows everyone,
I was the new girl.
I quickly inherited the fancy boy,
nice, handsome, stupid,
the right curves in the right places.
Madly in love with his car,
a small red one, short-legged,
headlights like billiard balls.
I like healthy girls,
do you like attractive cars?
No, nor the ugly ones, a hindrance.
Concerning sensations,
I prefer bikes.
Emilie, you're shameless.
Cycling is delicious,
your body unfolds,
your thighs harden,
and your sex, impregnable,
hugs the saddle prosthesis,
which reacts
to each surprise of the ground.
Aren't there any bikes
at your friends' friends'place?
Men love looking at women cycling.
Go on, I love when you touch my hair.
- And after cycling?
- There was the shower head.
Hanging out in the bath
like an adult,
you want to be clean everywhere,
thoroughly scrubbed.
The shower is hot, it tickles.
You are looking for something,
something else,
and you remain there
with your little girl's pussy
swollen, sore, unsatisfied.
Does it feel better like that?
Yet, it happened with the boy,
didn't it?
He was with a friend.
He invites us to have a coffee
at his parents'... the parents are away.
The flat?
I'll remember it all my life.
Atrocious... ly conventional.
Just entered, his friend: "Must get
something, be back in 5", and leaves.
The other one has a go to court me.
Nightmare.
I'd been too lazy to sew my suspender,
it held with a safety pin.
I wanted to protect my reputation.
I'd never thought
I had so much talent for simulation.
Supple, sensual, passionate.
One hand clutched on my suspender,
one eye on my watch,
the other to the sky... the ceiling,
imploring the gods that it ends
before the buddy comes back.
Well, obviously he didn't.
Bright one!
I was put off by boys
who keep their watch on for lovemaking.
For some time.
At school when girls
were talking about sex,
I thought it would be different for me.
I was right, it was worse.
I'd been waiting for years.
What's left to me?
An obsession with the safety pin.
MY POOL poor darling!
Wheras, it's sublime
when it comes by surprise,
the head and body blow up,
go from ignorance to the unthinkable.
You're pretty lyrical. How was she?
So strong, she pulled me
out of a dream,
I woke up to feel my orgasm,
filled with wonder.
- Are you jealous?
- Yes.
The next evening, I was hoping
the dream would be back.
I focused on the memory
of the miracle.
Then I had to come back down
to earth,
I was like everyone else,
I had to lend a hand.
- Do you like the flat?
- I don't know, I haven't been round it.
Did you see
the girl from the agency again?
Yes.
- Did you really like her?
- Yes.
She was watching me, from behind
a window. I had the street, the number,
I looked up, there she was.
Each time it was in another place.
She had the keys of empty apartments.
We camped.
We were looking for tracks.
Who had loved in those rooms?
I knew nothing about her
except she was cheerful.
I had no time
to get used to a color, a hairdo.
It was summer,
girls are fickle in summer.
I really recognized her only
when she was naked in the dark,
her smell, the warmth of her skin.
Don't touch me.
Late at night,
she opened the shutters,
the cold wind filled out her shirt,
her tits stiffened.
She leaned on the railing,
we made love in the street,
in secret.
- Then you parted?
- Yes.
Once I came on motorbike,
she asked me to take her back home.
She squeezed tight against me
as close as possible.
She crossed her hands
under my jacket,
let her skirt fly high
on her bare skin.
I could feel as she,
the heat coming up from the ground
between her open thighs.
Did you split?
Not even that.
One day she didn't call me back.
One day I looked over a house with
the man who was to live with me in it.
We'd really thought it through,
we'd even bought the curtains.
Eight days later,
he moved in with his wife.
The curtains on your arms?
No way, I left them,
there was at least 30 km of hems.
And one picture window.
I hate panoramas.
It's vulgar.
- Never had a lover on a motorbike?
- No
Never made love at night
at a window at people's you don't know?
No.
- Never had fun under the sheets?
- No
I watched my cousins in the big bed.
I was still sleeping in a small bed,
my feet were jutting out.
That wasn't the bed that was too small,
it was my feet, too big for my age.
It didn't change.
- Why didn't you have them bound?
- But I wanted to.
But the cousins had confiscated
the safety pins to caress themselves.
Here...
Openly?
- Open?
- Closed.
And you didn't want to join them,
these cousins?
- To play the nurse?
- No
They didn't find me interesting.
They said:
"if we were boys,
we wouldn't like Emilie at all."
- And you believed them?
- Yes.
The next summer,
I played at postwoman.
- Not at dressmaker?
- No.
- Do you find it weird, postwoman?
- No no, that's fine.
It looked good.
Didn't you have cousins?
Yes I did, I put them in charge
to watch from the balcony.
"Here they are!"
Idiots!
Silly bitches!
It's for them that they came.
I don't regret it,
I hate being touched.
- Do you still see your cousins?
- No
They took over the uncles' company.
Each of them, three children.
Together, 30 workers
and 300 exposure models.
And they don't have fun,
even when they do the till.
Do the cousins make you fantasize?
Imagine, on a Christmas Eve,
The husbands somewhat deserted
but satisfied.
The lame dresses,
the shoes which squeeze feet.
The children well polished
silverware too-
I, nostalgic:
"Hey, cousins
Do you still play
with the safety pins?"
What if I go and see them again?
Would you like to see them?
You won't!
I saw you.
What about you,
what were you dreaming of?
Of this.
But stop watching!
At your age!
You could ask me.
- Emilie, can I touch you?
- Yes.
Good.
Can I talk to you?
Do you like words while lovemaking?
Do you like to talk?
Do you like to hear?
You don't answer any more.
Can't you find words any more?
I could say I am taking you,
this is a simple word, a sober one.
Is that all right?
Let me do it.
I liked sucking your sex.
I could tell you, suck me off.
Suck your lips for me.
Here, now, tell me.
Do you like caressing my bum?
Not only.
Do you like my ass?
Do you want my ass?
You'll have it.
Are you leaving?
Nope, I'm having a bath.
Don't look at me like that,
it's your bathtub, not your toothbrush.
Come.
You're right.
Why is everything in the middle?
I've removed the walls,
didn't move the pipes and plugs.
Nevertheless, I've installed this.
Like this, on the days I hate myself,
like that when I feel sorry
for myself.
And on the days in between?
I don't know, I tum on the light.
And at night?
Come.
I inform you:
I already had baths after lovemaking,
I already had sex in a bathtub...
- Even so.
- And I'm tired, and...
What do you want me to do with this?
Be sweet, at this hour,
he can't see any more.
It doesn't matter, he doesn't need
to see me washing you, come.
Aren't my hands too rough?
Callous, no need for massage glove.
- Why don't you say it?
- Things you don't tell the first time.
I say, tonight your skin is like...
- Very soft skin.
- Your kind of woman?
- Possible.
- How is it?
Only know you a little.
But you know if I look like
the women you have loved?
Not at all.
Well, yes.
- So, were you waiting for me?
- We always are.
But you didn't wait!
In the meantime, you mixed me up
with others who looked like me.
So I'm your type...
it's a disheartening banality.
I like girls who don't attract me,
I like girls too sexy
who have no charm but believe they have,
they move me because they haven't any.
And those ill at ease,
playing friends in desperation.
I find in them some charm because
they haven't any, and they know it.
I don't think I have a lot of charm.
I do have some, don't I?
Yes. Beware, it will over?ow.
- I'm among those you don't like.
- Just told you, I do.
Having said the opposite.
No discipline in your logic.
So I trust you, I don't.
And what's your kind?
No idea, I haven't found it yet.
So it's not you.
The last one you didn't like before me,
what happened to him?
I left him.
- You are lucky to multiply the splits.
- Why do you say so?
I'm at your fourth story.
Lovers who love,
split, regret, search, meet again
when too late, love it, makes me cry.
This story should happen to you,
it's mathematical.
First, they weren't really splits,
as we weren't really bound.
- Where are you going?
- I'll be back.
Second, if I feel bound,
I'm the only one involved
as I don't talk about it.
- Will you talk about it?
- Certainly not, except to you, perhaps.
- I won't say more, making fun of me.
- Certainly not.
Go on, tell me about
your former lovers, I like that.
In order not to split,
just don't say it's the last time.
This time, it's too early to regret,
and then it's too late to make up.
Do you understand?
- Don't you pee sometimes in the bath?
- Yes, when you're not here.
- Anyway, give me an example.
- You won't be dishonest?
The last time with the last one,
I didn't come,
from the sadness of it,
of making love without desire,
and of having to soothe him
for his disappointment. Possible.
He didn't guess.
For me it was a final
farewell concert, so complicated.
Final and complicated,
you must have had a lot of fun.
You cannot in principle,
so that at least he leaves happy.
And you, happy with yourself?
I'm disappointed, every time.
Sol indulge myself
in a parting gift.
You're cheating, no split no gift,
possibly a tiny consolation prize.
- You, for instance?
- For instance.
Do as if I were not here.
In which column do you put me
in the balance of your moods?
Debit or credit?
Where is your account book?
In the desk drawer, on the left.
I'm glad I guessed.
You sort out, decide, mark, close.
It helps me to understand.
Why do you want
to understand everything?
Can't you accept not to understand?
I accept not to understand
why you're still in my bathtub.
If I were the nitpicking kind,
I'd say that you answered
off the point, dishonestly.
I'll rather think
I don't understand you.
I'm the kind
who doesn't understand you.
This is the first time.
This is the last time.
It's always
the last time of something.
Now it's the last time
of our first time.
- Don't bother, I don't have my glasses.
- I don't either, I see you anyway.
Even if it were
the first and last time,
it wouldn't be the first time
we have a one-night affair.
Do you want us to play the break-up?
Or shall we reconcile?
Without falling into debauchery.
Try to be a little less clumsy.
Will you dry me?
I liked it when I was little.
How was it?
Serious. I tried to be useful
to girls,
I cheated in tests
so that they could copy me.
I saw them home when it was dark
to carry their bags.
- I liked going home alone.
- How we change!
You know we change.
At school,
girls play with girls,
boys with boys.
That's what you say.
You told me you had no girl friends.
Not really.
Not right now.
Little, I pretended.
You always have to pretend
when you're little.
I listened to the others, but
I just wanted to stay near the radiator.
They told each other everything.
I'll always remember one who had
just discovered her little button.
That was America. No.
Name me an inventor.
- Christopher Columbus.
- He discovered, he didn't invent.
- The little one as well.
- But she thought she did.
She was wrong.
Had you already explored it?
- No, but I'd read books.
- Reading on the sly?
No need to hide when little,
you can't be seen.
Behind a sofa, at a
station turnstile,
at the counter of bookstores.
"Gently her hands
were undulating under the linen,
her exclusive joy
was tearing up her heart."
I I understood why my friend
Celine she was really a friend---
- Not any more?
- No.
Loved the rope.
Up at full speed,
the rope tight between her thighs,
and up there she was hanging,
in ecstasy.
The furious teacher was shaking
the rope: "Celine, will you go down?"
I remember another Celine,
we were really in love.
Too much in love to talk.
One day she came and lean next to me
on the school gate.
We are looking at the pavement
at dusk.
The only thing I found to say is:
"At what time does
the garbage truck pass?"
Are you still interested in garbage?
Because here there is room for two,
but no rubbish chute.
This one is dry.
When you sit like that,
one can see your panties.
Well, we'd see your panties.
Tonight at Bertrand's, we could.
I can describe quite accurately
the panties you had on.
Ivory, small dotted flowers,
rather indented,
and quite high.
No elastic on the sides.
Cut on the bias. Am I right?
Maniac.
But you put it under our noses.
What matters is that it pleases,
you alone know you don't mean it.
Can I have a look?
I do think that in the day
you prefer high white panties.
You should feel safe.
I wear what I like, when I like
If I were you,
I wouldn't search there.
Why, I love cupboards. I could have
while you were sleeping.
You wouldn't do that?
Is it not to be done?
I promise you it is.
- I'll tell you. Then?
- It's no.
Private life, no trespassing? By grudge
because you're upset, or on principle?
Do you want to cure me of my obsessions?
Give me one good reason.
And if it were very important to me
to open that cupboard?
If I open it, will you throw me out?
No. And if I answer yes, would it be
laziness or passion?
My risk, yours is very small,
you don't do patching up any more,
your suspender belt is really refined.
Pure cotton, pink.
Neither really big, nor really small.
Modest, not really.
Bye.
I beg you, put your glasses on,
what will be left for the children?
It suits you to be a teacher.
- They think so, too.
- Especially when they leave school.
I didn't like school
and I've stayed there.
I write with chalk, I wear an overall,
like nobody does any more.
It's strange to be faithful
to what you didn't like.
- But you went to the other side.
- It seems so.
I still go there to watch and learn.
You have starched curtains!
- I like it when it's smooth.
- And you don't like ironing.
- No.
- You see there's no logic in pleasure.
I, too,
can put my hands in your pants.
Can be done.
I don't put my hand in your panties,
I'd rather guess through them.
My finger follows the elastic
where it bites the skin.
I go down.
The birth of the thigh,
where the skin is already
becoming softer.
I touch your pussy,
rounded
trapped by the cloth.
Can you feel it?
My fingers caress your lips.
One...
and then the other.
They pa rt.
Don't touch me.
What's happening?
Don't you feel safe?
I like your panties
because it's a gate.
So what you give me
is even more valuable.
Do you give it or let me take it?
Do you like that I want to go
even further into your secrets?
Or haven't you thought about it yet?
You have a lump in your throat.
Yes, I know...
- Bastard, sadistic.
- You take advantage of it.
To answer for me.
It's hard to hide a desire...
for a man
- I was going to enter Polytechnic.
- Liar.
For the annual ball,
hired by the school newspaper.
First in Maths, average in French.
Waltz? Not marked, but...
I subscribe to a course, thinking,
I can dream one might be appealed.
Calculator!
I summarize, the rhythm,
the sliding of feet...
Could I once
make love to you like this,
simply pushing aside your panties?
The teacher moves into position,
she wasn't my type, but still a woman.
Dreadful, I'm starting
to have a hard-on.
I dodge, I undulate,
- unable to enjoy, to lie, to calculate.
- And above all to consent.
She insists on giving me
major thrusts:
"You have to push with the pelvis, boy.
The pelvis!"
Shall we go back to bed darling?
I am asleep on my feet.
What about children?
- What children?
- We didn't mention children.
- I was watching if you smell of baby.
- You sniffed.
There is no indecency
in a woman who breastfeeds.
It's natural, innocent,
not erotic at all.
The general opinion.
I think it's terribly arousing,
does it bother you?
No.
Ever seen at the hospital,
pregnant women, in a well ordered queue,
with their little belly, where everyone
will stick his nose? Looks like a herd.
- I'll mount guard.
- One knocks at the door of the room,
enters without letting you say
"come in", speaks gaga:
"How is she this morning,
did she sleep well?"
As if it were you in the cradle.
It's offensive.
- You'll have a private barn.
- It'll be paradise.
What did you say?
Nothing. I thought of something,
but didn't say it.
Say it.
Birth, barn, crib, paradise.
- Do I think I am the Blessed Virgin?
- I wouldn't put it like that.
- I don't think I am like the others?
- Yes.
- Right, you're not like the others.
- Yes, I know, thank you.
- Will I make you extraordinary babies?
- Obviously.
You are like the others,
you're really made to be a dad. At last.
For tonight, it'll be fine.
Will she look like you?
It's you who looked like her
when you were a baby.
I'll recognize you,
though I haven't known you.
- Do you have photos of you to compare?
- Too late.
Next time you will give us a boy.
I can't wait to watch her growing up.
I think I'll mix you up.
When one of you comes near me, I won't
know which one if I don't look up.
Afraid of being aroused,
as by a stranger.
Classic. You'll make do
with her friends.
Yet I'll feel nostalgic
for the nursery school.
The gates opening,
and she, who threw herself at me.
If I pick her up at high school,
will she still run to me?
You know how to tell stories.
She won't.
A little kiss in the morning,
a smile occasionally.
She stays a long time at the window,
she's waiting.
And what is she looking at?
It depends.
From here the street.
The lives behind
the small square of light.
She thinks she also lives
in a small square of light,
and she doesn't know her life.
Then she looks at the garden,
which has become very small
since she's grown up.
- And the boys across the street?
- Incessantly.
She wonders if one can look
more intensely.
Yet she doesn't guess
she wants to join them.
Why doesn't she ask,
the little arrogant?
If they don't guess,
they don't want her hard enough,
then she doesn't want them.
When she crosses the street,
not even a smile.
"They live in the neighbourhood?
I haven't noticed."
She still hangs about the streets,
you reassure me.
She goes to the haberdasher's
to buy a pair of stockings.
Her granny bought her a suspender belt,
because she hates tights.
It's rough, too tight,
it cuts the lips.
She wants to keep
her upper thighs naked,
to feel the cold on her skin.
- This is why you often wear socks?
- There aren't 50 solutions.
But then,
at Grandma's, the still holiday,
in the still house, in the still
village, in the still summer,
she moves.
She goes to the mirror
to put on her stockings.
Show me.
Tum on the light!
Do you think she is moved,
that she'll caress herself?
Certainly not.
I don't remember if I was pretty.
I should have had nice breasts.
All 13 year old girls
have nice breasts.
I didn't look at them.
Nobody looked at them.
One evening,
in the bathroom,
I looked at my penis,
and I started to get hard.
I was nine.
Every night, only to look at it,
I had a hard-on, for no one.
Poor baby.
What if I open the door of the bathroom
and I catch him in the act?
All stiff, proud and lost,
what can I do?
Go away on tiptoe.
Won't you tum into
a terrible mother?
Gone the days you cuddled his penis,
kneaded his thighs and buttocks, with
complete impunity since he's your baby.
You won't know she's been wondering
for hours in front of the mirror.
Sometimes she makes herself cry.
And she looks at herself.
She tries to understand.
It's sad not to have
the right to soothe.
It's because we'll be old.
They'll be themselves,
neither you nor I any more.
- Everyone for oneself, then.
- Everyone for oneself.
Good.
Could I borrow your sweater?
Thanks for the toothbrush, wouldn't you
have something that covers a bit more?
In the bathroom's cupboard...
Can you see which one?
There're old tracksuits,
I always buy them too big.
You've got old.
- Your hearing is worse than before.
- Nobody in the building right now.
And me?
- 1: Prohibition to listen too loud.
- 2: Or the same piece 10 times.
To listen to music at night
when the other's asleep.
- To read in bed.
- To eat in bed, spreading crumbs.
To dine out.
Too sad.
Couples who only comment
on the dishes. Too risky.
- Beyond the menu they argue?
- Wrangle, quibble, quarrel.
That's later.
"I forgot my drops."
"Should never have chosen that,
too heavy."
"ls softer at home."
- "You got parsley between your teeth."
- We won't grow old like that.
Then, I don't stay. I'll stay with you
to be like everyone else.
At night I watch couples locked in
their little box on wheels, I like it.
Prohibition to be scared in cars.
Carsickness?
No, authorized.
Bad moods, prohibited.
Moods, biles, black biles,
phlegm, blood...
You've to get used to my smells.
Do I smell?
Forgive me, Holy Emilie, but you do.
Even when you make love,
your mouth's a peculiar smell.
Good.
If it was unpleasant,
I wouldn't have said it.
I can't trust you.
Masochist.
What's more I can't be smelly
any more, to be a louse.
Be a louse on purpose.
No right to blame me
for looking and stinking like one.
No way, I'm not a masochist.
I have thought about it. Me neither.
No, I won't make it.
It's too hard.
Do you want to stay alone.
You stay here because you don't have
the courage to go home.
Don't you have the courage
to send me back any more?
Do you want me to help you?
To make me stay?
What's the program?
A: Send back Louis
who wasn't unpleasant all the time.
B: Keep Louis but
there'll be inconvenience.
C: Do not want to choose,
even better, not be able to choose.
I'll tie you up.
- Well, stake you up.
- What?
Stake.
Horticultural meaning, of course.
To put a stake, a professional job.
L am a nurseryman
The serene despair of old couples,
threatening, threatening.
Describe me a view of the outside
in daylight.
- You'll laugh.
- I am not so sure.
I am walking naked in a meadow,
on the edge of a wood,
I hold a naked woman's hand,
and one child,
two, three.
Naked?
- I haven't laughed.
- You should have.
Walking in tall grass,
up to the thighs.
The grass is dry, crunches,
scratches.
No, it's deep green.
It brushes, opens under the steps, if I
think hard about it, it's very exciting.
- What else?
- Lapping.
Water, very small.
A puddle sucked by the sand,
a dike licked by the swell.
Even a muddy pond,
a black hole with water in winter,
bare trees reflected in it.
There's a pond where I work.
Will the children play safely there?
No.
There's always some danger.
Yes.
I feel better.
Does seducing reassure you?
Before, yes, it did, now, not at all.
What about you?
A man in love makes
you feel more lovely.
Isn't it lovely to be loved,
you don't keep this pleasure
for yourself. It'd be mean.
It's more fun to play in pairs.
Why not three?
I don't know how
to adjust 3 side mirrors.
And I'm not a man in love.
And I'm not sure that
I love to be loved.
But I like it
when you stroke my hair.
My neighbour is a redhead.
I sometimes see her in the street.
Not often enough.
To meet the eyes of a woman
who comes to you.
Right, you don't see them.
Neither do you.
So what do you look at first?
- I'm only curious to meet.
- The naked truth.
You see evil everywhere.
It's too late to slip away,
as soon as I've caught her eyes.
That's the way to say it, isn't it?
At the airport, waiting to board,
not a word.
I know nothing about her.
She's alone.
On the plane, the blinds are down,
people're sleeping.
I feel like talking to her.
I sit next to her.
We're still not talking.
I'm going to kiss her.
How?
More.
No more.
And on arrival?
There is my wife and my daughter,
we've said the eldest was a girl.
They're waiting for me.
I'm so happy to see them again.
Do you remember?
What about the passenger?
She's passing by.
It's a tiny tear, an exquisite pain.
All's well. I missed you so much.
What if you'd wait for me
with the baby?
The man who kissed me on the plane,
I can't even make him out
from the other passengers.
Emilie, please,
it was so sweet to have cheated on you
just a little bit.
Seen from down here,
the cupboard looks huge.
- You've opened it right away.
- I shouldn't have?
It's a secret lock, I can never
open as it should.
I'd the same one in my room.
A little large for the low-budget flats.
When we came to town, we had to sell it.
So you bought it.
But you've kept your family
well hidden from me.
Grandfather?
Grandad?
Grandpa?
Great-grandpa.
Renoir, Auguste.
He didn't bungle his lilium candidum!
What about your grandmother?
I couldn't pin them, it's been so long
since I grew old at her side.
At the nursery, I helped
my grandma to cut dahlias for markets.
She grew dahlias taller than me
As I can't make them as tall,
I try larger.
This summer, I've got some
as big as cabbages.
Is the nursery yours now?
- Half mine, half Credit Agricole.
- I'd like to visit it.
I didn't expect that...
Right now, sweetie, as soon as
I've finished exploring my cupboard.
The really important things,
I used to write them
on a very thin little piece of paper.
I removed the dowel.
I rolled the paper.
I put the dowel back.
Tell me something important.
I love Dominique.
I watched her at night,
she watched me.
She lived in a gray house
with a glass door.
She was standing at the end of the hall,
frozen, lights on.
And one night she did it.
She lifted up her nightgown
and showed me her breasts.
You saw the rest too.
There's nothing left.
The door was only half-glazed, it
lifted up only half of the mystery.
Un sein - A breast. I thought
it was spelled like the villages,
Saint-Martin, Saint-Jacques...
It was as sacred as catechism.
The mystery remained unsolved
around the hole.
The butcher's son had told us: "there
are two ways to make love,
from the front, from behind".
It was still very obscure.
The other stack first.
This is where I kept
my favourite actress.
An American one in leopard bikini.
But my mother burned it up.
It was suggestive enough,
but didn't suggest enough.
The first time I did like in films.
Lips glued together,
Bodies rubbing one another.
She knew more than me about theory
but not about practice.
She wasn't pleased with me.
- Eventually I learned on the job.
- One after the other.
Here.
To think that now you're collapsing
under images. And no half-measure.
Do you mean hard pom?
Yes.
And I can't help
finding them beautiful.
I can hear your belly beating.
Come and sleep with me.
I promise I won't look at you.
Were you looking for me?
I was dreaming
that you were looking at me sleeping.
What are you doing?
I'm practicing crossing the apartment
getting in and out of your room
without waking you up.
Wish me good night.
On entering or leaving?
You said you wouldn't leave.
That I'll be here forever doesn't
mean I won't leave from time to time.
Now?
I save some of the night for myself and
when you're sleeping you don't miss me.
Why do you enjoy upsetting me?
This is not the time to have fun, nor
to whine any more. Have I scratched you?
Your knees hurt
because you aren't comfortable,
No need to add discomfort to cruelty.
What's happening?
What are you going to tell them
when you come back?
Those from your previous life,
who never knew you had left them?
Sit down, like everyone else.
That you aren't free tonight,
they should call back later.
Are you going to buy an answering
machine, saying you've been sent abroad?
You've probably practiced
farewell letters.
Enough humor and discreet emotion
to leave a nice memory.
Something like that.
Will you do it?
- Yes.
- Why?
For myself.
The big sharp knife
dipped in the inkwell.
Do you know how to cut chicken?
And to bite into a peach without
splashing my neighbors, and peel a pear.
But we could eat on oilcloth and use
paper towel to blot out the damage...
What damage? I hate carelessness and
waste, whereby I can invite myself.
I wouldn't have wanted that you bother,
but if it's for you...
- You won't help me
- I will, not to rush things.
- To leave myself a way out.
- Why rushing?
- Destroy what will wear out by itself.
- Yes, why?
Patience.
You like blazes when I don't even want
to leave a trace.
Your eyes are shining.
It suits you, why are you hiding it?
I know how to heal scratched knees,
how to blow when it bums
or to dry the tears.
There are dangerous grounds,
my little one.
Watch out where you put your feet.
If you cried, I'd take all your tears,
even the fake ones,
because you aren't crying for me,
you are crying over all the other ones
that you are losing.
Patience.
You'll cry one day with another woman
while remembering me.
You're sweet, Emilie,
you'll devour me like the others.
- Those before me?
- Those before me,
as you'll devour
those you'll meet after me.
- You don't know me.
- You don't know yourself.
But you're like the others. Greedy.
- You'll remember how happy it was.
- It wasn't happy.
You were suspicious.
You didn't want to let yourself go.
You're reassured with me.
You'll go back to it.
To impress, to surprise, to unmask.
You all go back to it.
- So she told you?
- She told me the one before,
she'll tell me about the next one,
if she's close. You'll do it as well.
- Never.
- You've told me about the ones before,
you'll tell me about the ones after.
Haven't you learned?
Never say never.
You'll come to share.
How would you do with your little
broken heart, forced to lie,
prostrate with injustice because
you've the right to love everything?
The stolen kisses, the lack of time,
the risky reunions,
the unknown rooms,
and my familiar tread,
my smell
the smell of the bread I toast for you,
while taking my place on the pillow.
Will you agree to it?
What will it take?
Just a little jealousy, to be correct?
That you showed your panties
to anyone a little earlier,
I don't even know
how it makes me feel.
I hate myself...
You'll have so many reasons
to hate me.
I already have them, I know you'll cheat
on me, it'll be fun with the new ones,
fun to go out at night in secret
and spit me out all the good lays.
That's convenient, I don't like men who
cry, I like irresponsible ones, idiots,
elusive ones,
singles with multiple partners,
I hate invaders.
I'm getting up very early tomorrow.
Coffee or tea?
A hot milk with sugar
and a little rum. I'll prepare it.
I'll go to bed. Don't wake up
the whole house when you leave.
Are you gone?
Stop trembling.
You could very well.
I like to tremble. It took me years
to get there, I'll go on.
Bite me.
Help yourself to me.
My wild one.
My fragile one.
I want you not
to refuse yourself anything.
Is it because they didn't want you
that you prefer me?
Yes.
I'd rather have it this way.
I'm hungry
I'll take care of the snack,
it'll be splendid.
Warm up some milk,
I like it hot and I hate skin.
Will you bring it to me?
Should I get up?
I can't hear.
Can you tum it up a little?
Ready!
Isn't it hot enough?
It comes over me at times.
The last time was in the street.
I was lucky, it was raining,
it was really late.
- A long time ago?
- I forgot.
I'd left a ridiculous,
stupid, hateful party.
- Somewhat disappointing, I'd say.
- Yes.
Sometimes, I still believe,
I try to do everything properly,
All matched, tweaked, my finger to the
doorbell... and it's already a failure.
- Did you ring?
- No.
There were guests coming up, I darted to
the next ?oor, listened a bit, then...
You ran away.
I'm not sociable.
This is a reason not to impose it
on society.
Reminder. Sorry. Go on.
I went back down the street,
I was walking, kicking the cobbles,
I was thinking, "Well done,
done for your shoes. Soaked."
Two great feet stopped me,
and a voice said:
"Where are you going alone,
in this state?"
I was all smeared, I said,
my head in my heels:
"I'm going home."
He puts his arm around me,
he takes my bag and says:
"I'll take you home."
He immediately found the keys.
He put some music on.
He washed me, dried me
and put me to bed.
He gave me a lime tea.
He tucked me in.
He said:
"I'll tidy up the kitchen a little.
I'll slam the door behind me."
I said, yes.
I fell asleep.
But it's me!
Are you sure it wasn't me?
What did he have that I don't,
except he's gone?
He was dressed all in black.
He was all black from head to foot.
It can be fixed.
And why did you invite me?
- And why did you come home with me?
- You first.
- Always me.
- I know.
I watched you questioning,
speaking little, listening a lot.
Everyone answers you, happy to pour out,
it's so interesting to interest.
And as I'm interested...
You didn't ask anything to me.
Your tum.
I watched you talking, a lot.
You speak softly
and you make people laugh.
So you pour out mean things,
sharp tongue, soft lips,
you know you look great.
- Didn't I?
- You did.
But you didn't tell me anything,
I wanted to have a closer look.
Was it desire?
Curiosity.
To know if we'll have some.
- Desire?
- Yes.
I have a small idea,
of a small beginning of an answer,
shall I say it to you now
or keep it for next time?
Deuce.
Let's give ourselves
one minute of silence.
What is desire for you?
It's when my body is curling up
for being alone.
When my womb is tightening for lack.
This lack fills my head.
Absorbs all my strength.
It is to be full of a lack.
- But since I'm here...
- Since you'll leave...
It's holding you prisoner inside me.
Keeping your smell on my lips,
on my fingers.
To stay open,
slippery,
warm.
From me?
Yes, I think.
What is it for you?
I'm thinking about it.
I talk to an academic...
You have the typical
academic's profile.
Desire.
Is it lust?
But desire is nicer, richer,
more subtle.
"I want a cigarette".
I don't smoke, I am doing a metaphor.
The word desire is enough.
A woman.
I want to know her.
To get close.
To touch her.
To caress her.
To kiss her.
Stop.
To desire her is the desire
to make love to her. Purely physical.
When it's purely physical, it's very
pure, otherwise it's already less clear
Stop.
- Go on.
- I will.
Desire is a need very hard
not to meet,
never mind if it isn't
with the one you desire.
I'm asked: "What can I do for you?"
I reply: "I'll have..."
Soto desire is to want.
I could also reply: "I'd love..."
Soto want is to love.
"I love you", in Spanish,
is "I want you", it saves time.
When you desire, you want, when you
want, you love, from the time of desire.
Unless the desire comes so suddenly
you haven't had the time to love.
Unless what you love is to desire.
Imagine, here, close,
a woman, a stranger.
Will I desire to desire her?
No doubt?
No doubt.
Some points to be specified, but a great
way not to deal with the subject.
Not to deal with it as you expected.
Did I fail?
The beating heart,
the expectation of the stranger...
But you have a girl's heart,
dear sir, congratulations.
Are you used to the old one
who snores?
Stay curious,
it's essential at your age.
You may be leaving someone?
- I can't refrain from dreaming.
- So you confess.
If I say it, I betray myself,
if I remain silent, I betray you.
You are also dreaming
of something else.
You dreamed of iced milk.
Very objectively,
our case is hopeless.
Doctor, don't make me be a broken man,
condemned to live the atrocious reality.
When I feel empty, a passing woman,
an intimacy to guess keeps me alive.
- Do you ever feel you're dead?
- We'll talk about it later. You?
Yes.
It's too early to talk about it now.
Silence.
Reluctant? Resigned?
Embarrassed?
Coward?
As you wish.
I'm afraid, I don't know you.
They say I'm scary sometimes.
Funny, isn't it?
No.
- Am I scaring you?
- Sure.
- Why do we wish for meetings.
- Because it's frightening.
And it's so delicious to be in love.
It bothers me to be in love.
Me too.
I stay at the bedside of the girl
I've just kissed,
I can't free myself,
I feel like crying.
I moan, I contradict myself...
- I...
- contradict you.
I'll end up jealous.
You're imagining things.
It won't last.
- If it doesn't last, better to stop.
- No.
If it doesn't last,
not worth stopping it.
- While it lasts, it's something.
- I think we agree.
Shall we change the subject?
What are you growing now?
Marigolds, pansies. Colourful.
I'll bring you some.
It almost fell down.
Don't bother, I'll clean up tomorrow.
Zounds, hard work never did
anyone any harm.
Feet in mud, summer like winter.
Still, cold hands, warm heart.
- Growing?
- Growing, sprouting.
All good things come to he who waits.
April showers bring forth
May flowers.
All in all,
I don't find you funny at all.
Me neither, I don't find myself funny.
And you're not funny every day.
You're rather tragic,
yet that would be funny.
I don't like jokes.
- Don't you understand them?
- This is exactly what I'm saying.
But did you understand
it wasn't a joke?
I leave you the choice:
lover, friend, husband.
At least the three of them
to start with.
I didn't ask anything.
Perhaps we should do things in order.
First we are lovers, later we get
married, then we stay friends.
We'd play cards.
- What are you doing?
- I play alone.
- Usually, there's the model.
- Well, there's none.
Let's stay lovers,
if that reassures you.
To your friends
at the horticultural fair:
"So, ol' Louis, still
th' same bird?" What's your answer?
I'd swap, but they wouldn't get it.
New broom sweeps clean.
I won't wait for you my guy.
Won't! Bird in th' hand's worth
two in th' bush.
- He who hesitates is lost. She's left.
- With whom?
Didn't say. Wanted to talk to Louis,
'cause 'e was her bloke, gone too.
- But were engaged.
- Looks like changed their minds.
Well, I'll make every effort.
With some time,
I'll make a deserving husband.
There's no merit in love.
No justice,
all's required from the same one.
- This is abuse of power.
- It's chain.
You'll see, you'll become attached.
Out of curiosity, say, we're married,
I leave, do you come to take me back?
Certainly.
Just explain!
Louie's sigh.
He thinks she's incorrigible.
Emilie's sigh.
She knows she is.
What does it represent?
This is old.
A landscape.
- Empty?
- I hope so.
It's so restless everywhere.
If you'd leave, I'd wait for you
at home, in case it would go wrong.
When you have someone to cheat on,
it's stronger.
You'll be more excited.
I go home, to find you just as
I've left you: "Look, it's Emilie".
She'll be happy, I watered her picture
every morning, it's perfectly fine-
Good for you, because when I leave,
I don't come back.
No model.
No merit.
No false start, no hope of return,
and it has to last forever.
Well, we won't get bored!
You know, I'm never bored.
You could travel,
we've already talked about it.
Not far away, Emilie.
Without losing sight of you.
A friend's gift.
Painter?
Gone?
There's something you should try,
it's to improvise
a little anger, modest,
nothing tragic nor irreparable.
For you to comfort me?
You couldn't refuse it to me.
We'd make peace in bed. Poor one,
you didn't invent anything.
You've already made me cry,
now I'm busy.
I'm going too far, explode, beat me!
I'll scream. I'll make you feel sorry,
you won't be able to send me home.
You're cheating.
All right, I've cheated, please,
help me to stay.
I'm quietly taking off my glasses
and I'm going to bed.
- I'll have tried everything.
- Yet you had a chance 'cause I'm tired,
but as everything is spoiled,
I can admit it, I'm very angry.
I'd like to see you wither on the vine,
I hope you'll die on your dung.
I'm dreaming of hurting you.
I'm not dreaming it any more,
it's done.
I know how to hurt you, even
if you can hide it, I like to hurt you.
- Now do you feel avenged?
- Why say that, I never do, even tired.
Why do you say "hurt"?
It's not a nice dream, I was leaving,
but I can't let you have bad dreams.
Don't bother, it's dawn.
Nevertheless you look dark.
Any hospitality?
I want to be alone.
I want to walk.
I would like a clearing
with a straight red-trunked pine tree.
The cuts in its bark,
as deep as rifts.
And moss as high as a forest
because I am so close.
My face leaning on the tree.
I would like to knot my body
around it.
I let my body slide
to the needled ground.
Brown, moist, soft.
Just a broken branch,
a stone to resist my womb.
The light is warm,
washed.
My eyes shut,
the taste of earth in my mouth.
I caress myself.
I come.
When my hand leaves my lips,
it is hot,
sprinkled with mist,
as when you talk in the cold.
The distant landscape is misted over
with the rising heat of dawn.
- I am all mine and I...
- No.
No.
You want an encounter.
Tell me.
I walk by your side in a forest,
we reach a clearing,
I do not know who you are.
You look at me.
I guess you have guessed me.
You wait.
You lean on a tree, I lean on you.
You are wearing a full skirt.
I raise it up to the waist.
I hold your waist in my hands.
You keep your legs straight,
and you spread them just a little
to let my hand caress you.
Your eyes are closed.
You are defenseless.
You let me kiss your lips,
it tastes of the earth.
You're wet as a spring.
Now if you want, I'll take you,
lose myself completely in you.
Yes.
Say it.
I want you to stay with me.
- Do you love me?
- Yes.
Say it.
I love you.
It is a start.
What is it going to happen to us?
We sleep.
It has happened to us.
- To say yes to each other?
- Yes.
Yes.
Come on, let's fall asleep.
Together.
Subtitles: frenchsub