Claude Sautet's Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud (1995)

Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud is the final film that Claude Sautet made, and is a wonderful one. Essentially there are two characters here, as in the title, where the badly and underemployed Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart) meets the ex-judge and ex-businessman, the wealthy and elderly Mr Arnaud (Michel Serrault).

Mr Arnaud (we don't refer to him as 'Pierre' here) was a brief lover of Nelly's friend Jacqueline (Claire Nadeau), and on one occasion that he meets Nelly he offers to lend her the six months rent she owes, just like that, no strings attached, although Nelly doesn't look surprised but refuses very calmly and then goes home to tell her shiftless workshy husband that she's accepted the money and she's leaving him. This statement is also received as calmly as it is made: most things, no matter how important they are, are said and performed calmly in this film. The important element most of the time is for the viewer to guess the psychology behind the statements or behind the expressionless faces of the protagonists.

Nelly tells another premonitory lie when she tells Mr Arnaud that she has slept with Vincent (Jean-Hugues Anglade), Arnaud's publisher, and that she enjoyed it. She's now working on Arnaud's memoirs at his flat, the 'loan' being forgotten, and Arnaud greatly enjoying Nelly's company, almost, one could say, enjoying a sublimated sexual relationship with Nelly. And Nelly, who is also greatly enjoying the relationship but in a different way, even acts as a kind of editor to Arnaud, mentioning repetitions, obsolete expressions, and places where cuts could be made. She does this seemingly without self-consciousness: again, the viewer has to guess at the thoughts behind the words.

There's a hugely, potentially deeply emabarassing moment Arnaud sits and watches the sleeping Nelly, his hands not touching her but tracing the outline of her shoulders, and wham! She opens her eyes. But her only reaction is to observe that he can't sleep, and she holds his hand until she goes back to sleep again and Arnaud quietly leaves to return to his own bed.

Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud is exquisitely handled, there are no unwelcome moments, there is a very limited obvious psychology employed here, suggestion is all-important. There's a moment at the airport when Mr Arnaud appears to be wavering, wants to return to the past. But no, of course he can't, he's packed his past in cardboard cartons, all the books he's read, swapped his past for the future, which will reveal his past in the form of a book. His immediate future is in his life with his past wife, in travel, and then... And then Nelly continues with her future, the past of Mr Arnaud, before she can catch up with another future.