"The Salt Of Tears" -- Movie Review

This week at the Virtual 58^th New York Film Festival, I streamed the new French drama, “The Salt Of Tears”.

Synopsis

After breaking a few hearts, what happens when a ladies man actually falls in love? 

Story

Luc (Logann Antuofermo) aspires to be an even better carpenter than his father – that’s why he’s headed off to a noted carpentry school in Paris.  While there for a few days, he’ll take a test in the hope that he will earn admission.  But besides his serious professional ambitions, Luc also has an avocation:  he’s a bit of a scoundrel.  Fashioning himself as a bit of a Casanova, he’s something of a love-‘em-and-leave-‘em type.  The only reason why Luc is able to get away with this is because he’s young and handsome; he can pretty much get any woman he wants and make them feel lucky.

During his time in Paris, Luc picks up Djemila (Oulaya Amamra) at a bus stop.  Flattered by the attention, she’s extremely responsive to his advances.  They see each other these few days and have an intense affair, the upshot of which is Djemila falling in love with Luc; when he leaves to return to his father’s house, Luc makes plans with Djemila to hook up at some point down the road.  But when the day comes, he carelessly stands her up because he has run into Geneviève (Louise Chevillotte), an old girlfriend from high school.  When Luc learns he’s been accepted to the school in Paris, he leaves Geneviève behind – even though she informs him that she’s pregnant with his baby.

Going to school in Paris, Luc eventually meets his match.  When set up on a double-date, he is introduced to Betsy (Souheila Yacoub), an attractive young nurse who works at a hospital near his school.  After a short but intense period of dating, they agree to move in with each other.  Things are going well until the day he picks up Betsy after work and she introduces him to Paco (Martin Mesnier), a co-worker who suddenly finds himself with nowhere to stay when he’s evicted by his landlord.  Reluctantly, Luc agrees to allow Paco to move in with them.  But while Luc is at school, is Betsy having a secret affair with Paco?          

Review

“The Salt Of Tears” (AKA, “Le sel des larmes”) was shot in black and white – whether this was done to make the film more or less romantic may very well depend on your own personal viewpoint of the movie.  As you play along with this motion picture and just let it wash all over you, it can be difficult to predict exactly where it is going.  While the story itself is satisfying, its ending is a little less so, leaving us with more questions than answers about where Luc is going after the picture’s conclusion.  Although this is a bit frustrating, it doesn’t seriously detract from the overall work.

It would be inaccurate to put “The Salt Of Tears” into the genre of Romance because the protagonist of this story, Luc, is far too selfish to be able to actually fall in love – although he does manage to con other women into falling in love with him.  While this film will inevitably be characterized as more of a Drama, perhaps more precisely, it’s a Tragedy because the protagonist eventually finds himself in a truly tragic situation in the end.  The way Luc engages these women, there’s no sense of fun – maybe cruelty is the more exact term, although we’re never quite sure why he does this. 

This film is rather short – under two hours.  Normally, the concise style of storytelling is more of a positive than a negative, but in this case, it may be that the brevity hurts “The Salt Of Tears”.  Another ten minutes at the end would have been useful to provide more of a sense of resolution.  One might be left to feel that by the time the credits roll, these characters are merely left to float aimlessly in space.  Not providing one more scene or two is a cop-out in storytelling; it’s lazy.  Here, the director is asking the audience to do his job by writing their own end to the movie.  This lack of creativity damages what is otherwise a decent motion picture.