Juliette, Je T'aime: Supporting Actress Blog-a-Thon

This is part of the Supporting Actress '07 Blog-a-Thon @ StinkyLulu
For a while there, I had very, very little idea of who I was actually gonna do for this. Some possibilities were:

- Saoirse Ronan? One obvious problem: I still haven't seen it.
- Imelda Staunton? Meh.
- Kelly Macdonald? Kinda meh.
- Julia Stiles? I was seriously about to do her, but no.
- Evanna Lynch? I... ya know what? That's actually perfect!

But that idea cooked a little longer than it should have and it burned away. The only other major one I want to do is Juliette Binoche, but she's 2006. WAIT! She does have a 2007 one, ya know...

Easily my favorite part of Paris, Je T'aime, Places des Victoires (directed by Nobuhiro Suwa), is the story of Suzanne, a mother who had just recently lost her son and is an immense state of depression. Suzanne, of course, is played by Juliette Binoche. And Binoche, if you don't know, is an extraordinary actress. In the two films she's going to get two Chloes for in two different acting categories, she plays two mothers who love their sons. But Amira, her character in Breaking & Entering, loves her son so much, she's willing to do anything to protect him. Suzanne, on the other hand, just wants her son back.

The amount of raw, beautiful emotion she can get out of five minutes is astounding. She loses faith in the world, in God. You feel the devastation; it's as loud as thunder. She perfectly projects the aftershocks to her psyche, the desperation to have her little boy in her arms again. And she gets her wish, in the form of an angelic cowboy (Willem Dafoe, in his least creepiest role ever).

He asks her if she wants to see her son.

She hesitantly-then-ecstatically nods yes repeatedly.

He asks her if she really has the courage to follow him.

She does.

Then, out of nowhere, she's implanted into what seems like a memory. The kids are playing in the street, including her's. But it's not a memory. It's a vision. Justin, her son, comes running up to her, and the smile she has when she sees him is truly incredible. He says "Mommy, there's a cowboy! Can I see him?" But Suzanne just wants him to stay, to hold onto him tight forever. The way she plays her desperate pleas can break your heart in an instant. Then she hears her husband calling her. She looks around, very alarmed. Justin says "Listen! Daddy's calling you." And then her daughter is calling for her. And her son says, "Isis and Daddy are waiting for you." She looks up at her son, and though the angle of the camera you can see her face tell you her heart is weary and wise at once. She pulls him closer, looking past the camera, at the cowboy. She knows what's about to happen. She starts whimpering, like she were about to cry. "Can I go now?" he asks. She starts nervously kissing his stomach, acting as a farewell to her son, something we're to assume she didn't have a chance to do the first time, as Justin walks off with the cowboy.

She is pulled back to reality by the sound of her husband's voice, a smile kind of forming on her face. Hopeless fear being replaced by cautious optimism. You can tell she is saved from her sorrow.

"What happened? Where did you get this strength?"

"From God."
(For last year's Supporting Actress Blog-a-Thon post, click here)