Common Thread, A

Synopsis: Seventeen year old Claire Moutiers (Lola Neymark) has moved out from her parents and their cabbage farm. In her spare time she indulges her passion for embroidery whilst concealing from everyone the fact that she is pregnant. After quitting her supermarket job she gets a part-time job with Madame Melikian (Ariane Ascaride), a bespoke embroiderer, who has recently lost her son in a motorcycle accident. Gradually a friendship develops between the two women.

Brodeuses is director/screenwriter Faucher’s first feature and it has garnered a raft of well-deserved awards and nominations both at Cannes and the French Césars for it is a delicate and beautiful film in a style over which the Europeans have mastery

Faucher has remarked that she wanted to convey the idea that just as plants need enriched soil to flourish, so people also need nourishing to bloom. She realizes this metaphor from the wonderful opening scene of cabbages and soil, which then pans out to reveal Claire picking (actually stealing) those cabbages, which she will then trade for rabbit fur which she includes in her exquisite artistic creations.

Many of the scenes have a measured simplicity that at the same time captures every minor detail – close-ups of bread being broken into a bowl of milk, the focus on coloured spools of thread, a stillness where nothing is said or heard but the industrious work of a needle sewing tiny sequins into a sheer cloth. The camera work is rich and warm with a beautiful musical accompaniment. At times there are extreme close-ups on the sequins, and the sparkle of such tiny objects reflects the growing spark in the two initially depressed and inward-looking women of the story. Occasionally the camera ventures out from the women’s enclosed environment into idyllic countryside, where the power of nature underscores the cycle of birth and death that each woman is experiencing.

Brodeuses relies in many ways on what is not said, and upon the actors’ abilities to convey inner emotions through gestures, looks and silence. In one particular scene Claire presents Mme Melikian with a shawl she herself has crafted. Through minimal use of words the emotion behind the growing bond is conveyed. It helps that young Neymark has that type of translucent and vulnerable beauty (but with a head of flaming red hair) which, particularly under Faucher’s careful direction, shines. Ascaride has a long filmography, notably in the films of her husband Robert Guédiguian and she possesses a handsome self-assuredness that is a great foil for Claire’s reserve.

Although one is of course tempted to see the story as a metaphor for “life’s rich tapestry”, there is nothing clichéd about the film. This is a gentle and life-affirming work which with its measured yet sure pace draws us into the characters’ lives and shows how great beauty can emerge from adversity.

 

 

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