Rent La Separation (1994)

La Separation - La Separation review by CP Customer

Two supreme actors, Isabelle Huppert and Daniel Auteuil, were at the peak of their excellence when this film was made, depicting their contrasting responses towards their dying love. Their respective facial expressions and body language are everything, so do watch this film on the largest screen you have, to become absorbed in their characters and to admire their immense talent. Highly recommended.

Set Me Free - La Separation review by Steve

Intelligent- but provocative- reflection on the disintegration of a relationship, which is elevated by a pair of award level performances from Daniel Auteuil and Isabelle Huppert. They play a middle aged bourgeois couple, with an 18 month old boy, whose romance is winding down. Then they are torn apart by her affair.

It's an intensely serious drama which looks at the separation from every perspective, including the philosophical... but mainly the psychological. Huppert plays the protagonist whose disenchantment prompts the split, but Auteuil gets more screen time as the left behind. Dan Franck scripts from his own bestseller...

And the audience filters this through their own experiences... Which may be why some feel the woman invents her lover to manipulate her partner! Certainly it's a lucky viewer who doesn't have any memories reawakened. It's shot in a documentary style for maximum realism with subdued interpretations from the stars

It's a pretty raw encounter. There isn't much plot; this is sustained by the actors and our empathy for the pain of their emotional trauma. There is some consideration of how we may change with age, and their generation in particular. It's a classic breakup film which gives us recognition rather than escapism, or hope.