Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987) film notes for SAM Films

 

Twenty-somethings, Blanche (Emmanuelle Chaulet), Léa (Sophie Renoir), Alexandre (François-Eric Gendron) and Fabien (Eric Viellard) live outside of Paris in the newly constructed city Cergy-Pontoise. They say they value friendship and the rules of friendship. One doesn’t date a friend’s boyfriend or girlfriend. The sentiment “my friends’ friends are my friends” is a theme throughout Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987) in action and conversation. With Léa away on vacation, her boyfriend Fabien and her new friend Blanche spend Saturday together at one of the man made lakes on the outskirts of Cergy-Pontoise within view of the Eiffel Tower. Blanche tells Fabien, “I feel like I’m in a Foreign Country. Here I accept things, like odors, that disgust me elsewhere. Actually, it’s like travelling through time when workers would picnic on the banks of the Seine...I thought all that was over.” At the lake, groups of people gather, sunbathe and listen to music. A concession stand sells hotdogs and beer. Léa hadn’t liked going to the lake with Fabien, but Blanche does. Fabien tells Blanche, “These people aren’t from Cergy. They live in crowded high-rises in crummy suburbs. To them, this place is the Palace of Versailles!” The people enjoying themselves at the lake are plenty. Cergy-Pontoise by contrast feels empty. The city is all cool lines, brightly painted railings, white tiled walls and staircases. The shopping center is built in red brick and glass. The extras who walk through wear business suits and carry briefcases. They live in Paris but work in Cergy-Pontoise or vice versa. 

What is beautiful in Boyfriends and Girlfriends is meant to be beautiful, the French countryside in summer bloom, Cergy-Pontoise itself, Blanche’s all white apartment, Léa’s long neck, Blanche’s thick eyebrows and lashes. They wear clothes in colors that change like mood rings. Blanche encourages Léa to stay with Fabien even as she is falling in love with him herself. Léa half heartedly encourages Blanche to pursue Alexandre, a man about town who works for light and power, though she doesn’t think Blanche is his type. “I’m not cute enough?” Blanche asks Léa. Fabien who’s fallen for Blanche discourages her pursuit of Alexandre, “He is ordinary and loving him makes you ordinary.” Alexandre finds Blanche boring. He tells Léa he isn’t interested in “moon shape faced girls.” Léa is his ideal. Blanche becomes for Fabien as essential as the sun. 

Léa, in her last year of computer school, is introduced holding a floppy disk and looking bored. She seems to be counting the days til graduation. Blanche’s line opens the film, “The change in the last paragraph is: In the hope that the Ministry of Culture’s commitment…” A long coil of telephone cord stretches across her messy desk. She is a government worker in an office on the top floor. Her suit jacket is too big in the shoulders. Léa meets Blanche at lunch. They share a table. Léa shares with Blanche her mixed feelings towards Fabien. Blanche shares that she is single. Léa can’t swim. Blanche offers to teach her. At the pool the next day they greet Alexandre who is handsome, and chased. Not particular, he goes with whomever. This bothers Léa who wants to be wooed. If Alexandre wants a chance with her he’ll have to whole heartedly pursue. 

Léa leaves Fabien to go with friends on vacation. She offers Blanche her ticket for a tennis match. Blanche’s date will be Fabien. Blanche and Fabien bump into one another while running errands. They go windsurfing on the lake. Fabien knows a shortcut along a towpath by the river. The day light around them fades, tree tops sway in the wind, in a clearing Blanche becomes overwhelmed. Fabien notices. She explains, “Maybe the silence. Or the hour, because when the sun starts to set you feel a pang of anxiety. And I feel good. Too good in fact!” They kiss. They are no longer simply flirtatious. The film changes. 

Fabien and Léa are mismatched. He tells Blanche that Léa has no stamina for what interests him, yet she can dance and shop for hours. Blanche loses her tongue when she runs into Alexandre.  Léa chats away. What is under the surface becomes obvious. The four friends go to friends of a friends party. They run into each other at a cafe. If one is missing they are talked about. Léa ends it with Fabien. Blanche gets over Alexandre. There are no regrets, no animosity. They make choices with the intention of forever. A large clock hangs in the center of Cergy-Pontoise. As is everything, all in due time. Cergy-Pontoise designed to be beautiful and modern will go the way other planned communities go as decade begets decade, overcrowded and thought of as outdated, circled by developers.