4 years in 5 scenes

I was fascinated by François Ozon’s 5X2, with its beautiful trailer and its idea that you can explain the demise of an intense romantic relationship in but five vignettes. I could listen to that same Paolo Conte song for hours.

 

 

And then I watched the film itself and found myself disheartened. Is every relationship a long serious of banal miscommunication and misplaced attempts at intimacy? The NYT’s review claims, “These two never seem to want the same thing at the right time. They have sex, unhappily, after their divorce papers are signed, but not after their wedding vows have been exchanged – at least not with each other – and their desires, erotic and otherwise, seem, from finish to start, always to be at cross-purposes.” Where Italian music and quick cuts to scences of sexual intensity shape the trailer, in the film itself, Ozon revels on how ordinary this couple is. It’s difficult to even say that the movie couple should have tried harder, though it may be true. They tried, less than some and more than others, and that’s what their whole romance and its demise unexceptional. I want to believe that they are exceptional, that marriages and relationships inflicted with miscommunication and failed connections are unique, but Ozon isn’t letting me have it.

If I had to show the demise of my relationship with Pirate in but five scenes, I would certainly have include scenes like the one I’m experiencing now. I’m sitting in our apartment alone and feeling alone. Pirate is out, accomplishing some errands he didn’t quite explain to me. He’ll come home, there will be something on his mind, he won’t open up about it, and I’ll still feel alone. When you spend so many years with one person, having memorized his mechanisms and gestures is both a blessing and curse. When his laughs are harried and lack depth, he’s uncomfortable with the topic at hand. When I ask what he’s thinking and he blinks, swallows, and replies, “Nothing,” he’s lying to me. If it were truly nothing, he won’t blink and swallow before answering. These are our miscommunications, our failed connections, our misplaced attempts are intimacy. I realize that for a large part of our relationship, I was the one who was bad at communicating. I would need things or need to say things, and rather than doing so, I would cause conflict in the shadow of my embarrassment to actually speak. Back when I didn’t like my voice, Pirate’s voice seemed to fill the room and he seemed so open. Since recovering my voice, almost a year and half ago, I’ve been haunted to discover how closed Pirate really is. What I long for these days is a relationship that’s so open and honest that we drown in our own intimacy.

Elle