By Jonathan Jones
Daily Bruin Contributor
Customers jaunt in and out of the glass-fronted Parisian salon,
a place of beautification as well as personal desperation. The
candy pink beauty spa is the main site for Tonie Marshall’s
“Venus Beauty Institute.”
The French film tells a tale that underscores the superficiality
of physical beauty and its impotence in engendering true
happiness.
The movie, which swept the Cesar Awards in France, exposes human
foibles in the interactions of the mostly female clientele and the
three uniformed employees, looking more like waitresses in a diner
than beauticians.
Angèle (Nathalie Baye), the oldest, most experienced
beautician, plays out her psychic crisis in a hedonistic string of
one-night stands.
Slender and still ravishing in her forties, but aware of her
fading looks, she boldly picks up men for perfunctory sex, all the
while eschewing true love.
Her abhorrence of emotional coupling seems driven by a cloudy
past that has to do with her ex-husband’s scarred face.
The film begins as Angèle is dumped by her lover in a
Parisian train station. She chases after him, castigating him at
the top of her lungs for refusing to love her.
The only one in the crowd who notices, though, is a handsome
young sculptor named Antoine (Samuel Le Bihan). Moved by her, he
follows Angèle to the salon and declares his love for her,
admitting, moreover, to jilting his young fiancee (Helene Filliere)
in the process.
Angèle finds his declaration ludicrous and dismisses him,
but finally exhausted by his pursuit, submits to him sexually. His
respect for her, however, thwarts his desire, and he flees from
Angèle.
Meanwhile, her colleagues deal with their foibles in different
ways. The innocent Marie (Audrey Tatou) regularly gives beauty
treatments to a wealthy widower (Robert Hossein) who lavishes her
with gifts. She finally succumbs to his seductions, but not without
material gain.
The flirtatious Samantha (Mathilde Seigner) has boyfriends lined
up but always winds up replacing companionship with meaningless
sex.
Eventually, Angèle and Antoine’s affair threatens to
end violently, as his jealous fiancee approaches them in the salon
with a pistol.
But fear not: the film kicks itself abruptly into a fantasy by
providing the desired happy ending. It remains, however, devoid of
any real emotional grounding or payoff.
The film artfully juggles the melancholy and the wryly amusing.
Brooding camera shots from outside the beauty salon evoke a sense
of loneliness, as the audience observes from a distance the women
preparing to close.
There are many hilarious moments and characters. For example,
the high-class female patron who loves to saunter in wearing only
an overcoat, prances around the spa naked, inspiring a crowd of
onlookers outside the glass exterior.
And then there’s Angèle’s visit to her spinster
aunts, which is amusing in that it so subtly rings true.
Baye, whose credits include “Day for Night” and
“The Return of Martin Guerre,” is truly fabulous as
Angèle. With only a glance or a tiny gesture, she speaks
volumes.
The supporting cast deserves approbation too: Bahin for his
earnestness as Antoine; Bulle Ogier, as the snappy businesswoman
who runs the salon; and Tatou, as the doe-eyed and naïve, but
unrevealingly shrewd Marie.
If only the film’s middle passages were not so redundant
and its point not so tedious, audiences might better be able to
enjoy the charmingly sympathetic characters’ perceptively
told predicament of urban loneliness.
FILM: “Venus Beauty Institute” is now playing in
select theaters.