Marie-Jo and Her Two Loves 2002

Working as always in the vibrant setting of his native Marseilles and putting his wife Ariane Ascaride once again at the centre of the picture, Robert Guédiguian (Marius and Jeanette) dramatises the emotional complexity of infidelity for a woman who really does love two men, and is loved by them in return. One is Daniel, her husband, a builder and father of their teenage daughter; the other is Marco, a ship’s pilot who lives the romantically solitary but maybe rather lonely life of a bachelor. Though the Mediterranean sun blazes on a clear blue sea, and the lovers take their pleasure with the doors and windows wide open, their physical exaltation is shadowed by a sense of mortality. Marie-Jo’s desire to make herself fully available to both men imperils her own sense of identity, and the film changes key as we see her distress grow, exacerbated by the self-righteous fury of her daughter. This is an odd, arresting film of contradictory impulses, a moving picture of late mid-life crisis, full of sensuality, but craving honesty.