Mademoiselle Chambon DVD, 2009

Justly compared to Brief Encounter, this understated drama sees a devoted husband inexorably drawn to his son's teacher. Chamber-piece cinema par excellence, says Alexander Ballinger.

Industrious builder Jean (Vincent Lindon) is happily married, at least until he becomes entranced by the violin playing of his son’s accomplished schoolteacher, Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain). He starts a halting, impossible affair with her and is then faced with the agonising decision of whether to stay with his young family or escape the confines of his small town with what might be the love of his life.

Punctuated by the haunting violin strains of Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, this is chamber-piece cinema par excellence. Relying on Lindon’s and Kiberlain’s nuanced performances – indeed their exchanges are so loaded with emotion that they are sometimes difficult to watch – Chambon has been justly compared to Brief Encounter. However, a more home-grown comparison would be to 1930s French cinema with Lindon and Kiberlaine following in the footsteps of ill-fated lovers such as Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan in Le Quai des Brumes. Whatever your emotional state by end of the film (and have some hankies at the ready) you‘ll need to add Toulon to Carnforth as one of cinema’s most emotionally freighted railway stations.

Alexander Ballinger on 18th October 2011
View all 20 of Alexander Ballinger's reviews