Changing Times (2004)

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CHANGING TIMES

Reviewed by Heather Picker

There are characters in André Téchiné's Changing Times who go back and forth between different cultures and different lovers, taking what they want when they feel they must have it and living without it the rest of the time. Then there is Antoine (Gérard Depardieu), an engineer who oversees massive construction projects but carries himself like he expects structures to collapse around him. For 31 years, 8 months and 20 days he has thought of no one but his former love Cécile (Catherine Deneuve, so you can understand his plight). He never married, never accepted that his parting with Cécile was a permanent one, and at this late date in his life has finally hatched a plan to win her back. Then he is caught in a mudslide.

Antoine's attention isn't convenient for Cécile. She lives in Tangiers with Nathan (Gilbert Melki), her Moroccan-born physician husband, and has a busy career as a radio host. Her son Sami (Malik Zidi) visits unexpectedly, depositing his strung-out girlfriend Nadia (Paradise Now’s Lubna Azabal) and her lonely 9-year-old son at his parents' home before taking off to rekindle a relationship with Bilal (Nadem Rachati) a former boyfriend who refuses to move to Paris. Nadia's presence puts Cécile on edge; she has watched her son enough to know he has relationships with men, and she questions what he's doing with this disinterested young mother who takes to sleeping all day and swiping Nathan's prescription pads when her estranged twin Aïcha (deftly played by Azabal in a dual role), a devout Muslin who works overtime at McDonald's to pay their mother's medical bills, refuses to meet her. Antoine is indifferent to these complications – he has waited long enough.

His assignment in Tangiers is one he plotted and schemed to snag. At night in his hotel room, Antoine listens to Cécile dedicate songs on the radio. He sits on the edge of his bed with a tape recorder in his hand, trying to think of things to say to her, and sends her flowers anonymously at work. When an accident at a grocery store brings the two of them together and Cécile isn't interested in romance, Antoine asks his assistant (Nabila Baraka) about spells and watches videos with rituals involving roosters. "We said we would love each other all our lives," he tells Cécile. "Don't you remember?" She tries to explain why they can never be together, but Antoine cannot be persuaded, and his expensive suits and expansive waistline point to a man accustomed to getting what he wants. He interrupts her at home and at the station, desperate to talk, and muses to Rachel (Tanya Lopert), her friend and coworker, "Tell me, do you think the first love can become the last love?" (For the record, I believe Edward Heyman and Victor Young answered that in 1952.)

Téchiné is juggling many storylines here, not just Antoine and Cécile's. Sami's relationships with Bilal and Nadia are given ample consideration by the screenplay, but while Depardieu, decked out and defeated like Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love, and Deneuve, who is glamorous even when she's supposed to look harried, add depth to shallow characters simply by allowing their wrinkles to be shown, Zidi plays his cards so close to his chest that we never understand Sami's motivations any better than his parents do. And then there is Nathan, played to arrogant but fun-loving perfection by Melki. He tells Antoine that after 20 years of marriage, his feelings for Cécile aren't what they once were, and smiles as he cops to having "one wife and several mistresses." He adds that he also has more than one culture, an echo of something Bilal says to Sami early in the movie: "You don't know what you want. You don't make decisions. It's understandable, though. Half Moroccan, half French. Half man, half woman. It must be hard for you to figure it out."

Bilal's words hang over the movie as Téchiné starts to make points about race, religion, the economy and relationships, only to pull back mid-thought and move on to the next shot. (As you would expect of Téchiné, they are stunning shots; cinematographer Julien Hirsch takes full advantage of the Moroccan locale.) The whole film is summed up in an exchange between Antoine and Cécile when she learns what he is building. "It's an ambitious project," she says. "It's very involved, politically." Antoine, flustered in her presence – even when she's not around, he's out of it when he thinks of her – tells her, "You know, I only handle the construction part. I need to give them the building in six months. I don't care about the rest." Cécile isn't ready to drop the subject. "It's a TV channel that will serve all of North Africa, as a rival to Aljazeera. It will promote moderate Islam." Antoine, only half-listening anyway, stops to talk to a coworker. When he rejoins her, it's on to a new subject.

About the DVD: Changing Times was released this week by Koch Lorber Films. It is presented in widescreen and anamorphically enhanced. Special features include a theatrical trailer and a 17-minute interview with actor Gordon Melki, who recounts getting off on the wrong foot with director Téchiné and explains why he thinks Nathan is the most normal character in the movie. Melki also offers an analysis of how Nathan views Sami's sexuality and expounds on Nathan's Judaism and how it fits into Téchiné's message about Jewish/Muslim conflict. The interview devotes quite a bit more time to this than the film seems to, with Melki calling Nathan "the ideal Jew, in a way," before explaining "he's a Jewish doctor who doesn't question his culture, but also doesn't really experience it fully and doesn't follow the Torah's precepts at all. He is more or less an atheist Jewish doctor." Melki's an engaging interview, though the piece does drive home that Changing Times could have done with more Nathan and Aïcha and less Sami and Nadia. You can visit Koch Lorber online -- they recently distributed another overlooked Depardieu film, "Nathalie...", that features intriguing performances by Fanny Ardant and Emmanuelle Béart.

Directed by André Téchiné. Screenplay by Téchiné, Laurent Guyot and Pascal Bonitzer. Starring Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve, with Gilbert Melki, Malik Zidi and Lubna Azabal. 2004, 95 minutes, Not Rated. In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

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