Time to Leave
Directed by Francois Ozon
Francois Ozon is what trendies want the awful Michael Winterbottom to be: He’s prolific, personal, creative. Time to Leave is his ninth film in less than 10 years and this vision of difference, sadism and longing might be his best yet. Melvil Poupaud plays Romain, a Parisian fashion photographer whose gay idiosyncrasy only partly explains the distance he keeps from friends and family. Ozon has ended his infatuation with transgression and surveys Romain’s soul crisis following a dread cancer diagnosis. Fatality has, somehow, enriched Ozon’s art.
Like last year’s good American indie film Loggerheads, Time to Leave builds to its protagonist’s mortality. Romain’s death on the beach makes for a stunning visual climax, evoking Visconti’s 1971 Death in Venice—that discreet monument to gay experience that insisted upon its portion of human folly. For Ozon, as with Visconti, nothing in Romain’s life begs special minority interest (although Poupaud’s performance is beautiful on several levels). Romain’s altercations with his family and ex-lover confirm basic human intimacies. After years glamorizing cold, post-boomer egotism, Ozon has lately moved toward more feeling and depth. Sulky Romain is a ruthless portrait of middle-class gay male privilege shown without excuses. He’s what Morrissey, in “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side,” described as “Behind the hatred there lies a murderous desire for love.” Time to Leave eulogizes frustrated love. Desire is frustrated—exacerbated—when Romain’s illness shortens his life expectancy.
Death symbolizes Romain’s stifled emotional capacity. He’s a garçon stupide (and, significantly, his mother is Marie Riviere, the star of Eric Rohmer’s search-for-meaning masterpiece Le Rayon Vert). That Time to Leave is explicitly not about AIDS shows Ozon deliberately adopting the non-sexist conceit of Patrice Chereau’s Son Frère. This view of gay life exchanges AIDS trauma for a different plaint, perhaps the spiritual detachment currently exemplified by the Meth syndrome. Because Romain’s restless cruising takes on the look of anger, Ozon reveals its confusion and pathos.
