Both Sides of the Blade Movie Storyline. Jean and Sara have lived together for ten years. When they met, Sara shared the life of François, Jean’s best friend and great admirer when Jean was playing rugby as a professional. Jean and Sara love each other. One day, Sara sees François in the street. He doesn’t notice her, but she is overwhelmed with the feeling that her life could suddenly change. For the first time in years, François reconnects with Jean and offers to work together again. An uncontrollable spiral is then triggered…
Both Sides of the Blade (Formerly known in English as Fire) (French: Avec amour et acharnement, lit. ’With Love and Fury’) is a 2022 French romantic drama film directed by Claire Denis, who wrote the screenplay with Christine Angot. The film is based on Angot’s 2018 novel Un tournant de la vie. The film stars Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lindon, Grégoire Colin and Hana Magimel. The film had its world premiere on 12 February 2022 at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Bear, while Denis received the Silver Bear for Best Director.
The title Both Sides of the Blade is derived from the song of the same name by Tindersticks, which was written by Stuart A. Staples for the film and is featured at its conclusion. When she received the song during the film’s editing, Denis was impressed by the “quality” of the title and deemed the French title Avec amour et acharnement too difficult to translate. Denis has described Both Sides of the Blade as the “real title” of the film because it “describes the movie” perfectly. The film was originally being marketed in English under the title Fire. Paste said there is “palpable contention” regarding the film’s title.
On 3 March 2022, during her introduction at the film’s U.S. premiere at Lincoln Center’s annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema series, Denis herself decried, “The film is not called Fire!” Denis told an interviewer at the event, “I tried today to speak with the distribution company because I think ‘Fire’ is not completely fitting for the film. ‘Both Sides of the Blade,’ it’s sharp. There’s passion, but it could be divided in a painful way. It’s cutting!” In April 2022, IFC Films officially changed its distribution title to Both Sides of the Blade.
Film Review for Both Sides of the Blade
Claire Denis is undoubtedly a film poet, but that does not mean that she is very romantic. Anyone who has seen her vampiric masterpiece Trouble Every Day knows that she doesn’t really offer a clichéd version of love in her films. Romantic relationships are tumultuous, sometimes slightly tinged with abuse and always disturbing. The characters don’t really know what they want from their partner, so usually that only leads to destruction, despair, and broken hearts.
She serves a similar dish in With Love and Acharement [+], presented in competition in Berlin, a film for which Denis once again called on Juliette Binoche, who was already in A Beautiful Interior Sun [+] in 2017, the film of the French filmmaker who has come closest in recent years to a certain amorous optimism – and again, we couldn’t count how many relationships the character of Binoche had to go through in his quest to find the man of his life.
In Avec Amour et Acharnement, Binoche once again courted the camera in the role of a woman in the throes of love. The surprise is that Denis presents an idealized version of love on screen, but very briefly, at the beginning of the film. So she can do it, if she wants, just not for the duration of a movie. Binoche’s character, Sara, is on vacation with her longtime partner, Jean (Vincent Lindon, recently in Titane [+]), and they laze on the beach, caress and swim in a sea that glistens under the sun. Of course, it’s just a temporary bridge, crossing over troubled waters.
As soon as the couple returns to Paris, the complications become obvious, and we would like them to meet again on this beach. Jean no longer really sees his son, who now lives with his grandmother, Jean’s mother. The boy’s mother, Jean’s former partner, is no longer present. Sara has known Jean for a long time. She got together with him for good because at first he would see her and then go home to his wife, as her boyfriend at the time, François (Grégoire Colin), returned to the apartment where he lived alone.
instead of spending the night with her. In fact, Sara asked herself questions: why do I stay with the one who leaves, instead of being with the one who returns home to find his wife? Thus, she got into a relationship with a certain idea she had of Jean. Over the years, the reality has turned out to be different and when she meets François again, rivalries, jealousies and intimacies resurface.
But although this kind of love triangle is a pillar of French cinema (how not to salute once again Jules and Jim), this film is one of the least successful of Claire Denis. There are a lot of ideas at play here, and not all of them seem to fit into this film. Sara works as a radio journalist and interviews people about the Beirut explosion, racialization in politics and ambient theories, but these conversations are a hair’s breadth in the soup. These are ideas (on the way Africans and Arabs are treated) that the director has explored much more in depth in other films, and which are simply hit on here, and this produces the opposite effect to that intended: these great subjects seem insignificant, as if thrown there casually.
Also, the story is told in a jerky way. The rough editing certainly reflects Sara’s confused state, but it also means that the film itself is completely scattered. For all these reasons, it’s hard to feel empathy for even one of the characters, or to really care about the man Sara will end up with, or even to care about a reconciliation or not of Jean with his son, in the sub-plot which concerns them. As for love, you can’t always win.
Both Sides of the Blade (2022)
Directed by: Claire Denis
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Vincent Lindon, Grégoire Colin, Mati Diop, Bulle Ogier, Issa Perica, Hana Magimel, Lola Créton, Alice Houri, Bruno Podalydès, Richard Courcet
Screenplay by: Claire Denis, Christine Angot
Production Design by: Arnaud de Moleron
Cinematography by: Eric Gautier
Film Editing by: Sandie Bompar, Guy Lecorne, Emmanuelle Pencalet
Costume Design by: Judy Shrewsbury
Set Decoration by: Jessy Kupperman
Makeup Department: Romain Marietti, Céline Planchenault
Music by: Stuart Staples
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: IFC Films
Release Date: July 8, 2022
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