Des morceaux de ma femme (2000)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Frédéric Pelle

Writers:

Stephen Dixon (novel)
Frédéric Pelle (writer)

Genre:

Short | Drama

Plot:

An old man goes to visit his wife in hospital to find she has died. He leaves the hospital refusing...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Awards:

6 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Gilberto Azevedo	...	Le vieil homme
Nicolas Abraham	...	Le vigile
Maïté Laplume	...	L'infirmière
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tiéri Barié	...	(voice)
Jacques Biccier
Solange Biccier
Jasmine Biziaux
Didier Ferreira
Emilie Gautrot
Monique Giac
Chloé Latour
Andrée Martin
Marine Muzeau
Mélanie Muzeau
Suzanne Virlogeux
Nicole Wasserman

Also Known As:

Pieces of My Wife (International: English title)

Runtime:

9 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Company:

Bianca Films

Appears cold and pointless at first but reveals itself to be the story of an intense life-long love story

An old man goes to visit his wife in hospital to find she has died. He leaves the hospital refusing to sign the necessary papers and is followed by a security guard. The guard follows him onto a bus and the old man explains why he must leave.

I'm not a big fan of shorts that hide their meaning very deep. I do like to think about things, but I don't like it when it's so well hidden that it almost appears that the film has no meaning. For a while this short had no meaning to me - it didn't seem clear why the man felt he had to leave everything. During the film the man tells the security guard that he was with his wife his whole adult life and begins to remove everything that she gave him or fixed for him - even to the extent that he strips naked on the bus.

At first this felt really cold to me - why did he want nothing to do with his dead wife, but then I thought back. At the start of the film the man is getting dressed and talking to himself, he says he loves her and that he feels beautiful and sexy because of her. When she dies he needs to move on because he cannot allow himself to die with her. Because she was such a part of his life and affected how he felt about her, her loss would leave a hole in his life that could destroy him. It sounds cold, but it seems like this break was the only way he could exist without her - by totally moving on and rediscovering himself as a person and not a couple.

This is a valid point and it is quite moving. I've never lost anyone very close to me and am hopefully many years from losing my wife - the thought that you could be so close to someone that he literally must close that chapter when she dies is very touching. It is a little extreme but maybe I've never been so close to someone as he has to feel what he felt.

The film appears cold-hearted at first but is rewarding with some thought. It isn't brilliant and the old man isn't very sympathetic, forcing you to get over obstacles to get to the point. However once I understood (or at least thought I did) a second viewing was much better. If anyone does see this - please give me feedback, I'd like to know if other people saw what I saw.