Les choses de la vie

"Les choses de la vie" is the ultimate "mid life crises" movie. A middle aged man must (but can not) choose between his younger girl friend on the one hand and his ex wife and son on the other hand. As a result he gets irritated and frustrated. He smokes heavily and drives aggressively.

Michel Piccoli wonderfully impersonates this character (Pierre Berard). It was a good choice of television channel "Arte" to select this film in memory of Michel Piccoli, who died in may 2020 at the age of 94.

"Les choses de la vie" also was the film in which director Claude Sautet changed from "crime" to "drama", and especially the drama of the middle class. He so became a sort of French Ozu. But where the middle aged Japanese man above all is interested in the marriages of his daughters (or the lack thereoff), the European middle aged man tries to prove that he is still capable by taking a younger mistress.

Sautet tells the story in a peculiar chronological order. Center piece in the movie is a car accident with Pierre as its victim (after all he was driving aggressively). Just like a stone thrown in the water gives wrinklings moving in ever wider circles, the injured Pierre has memories that go further and further back in time. At the end there is no clear distinction anymore between memories and dreams.