The Page Turner
Directed by: Denis Decourt
Well when I think of it, The Page Turner in its garb of a cold, sleek thriller is all about class-conflicts. Of course the disclaimer for such an outrageous inference is-this is completely my very personal understanding and is dependent on how I made sense of the movie.
Melanie Provost (Deborah Francois) is a small French girl, with the innate skill of playing a piano. She belongs to extremely humble working class backgrounds, where her parents work as butchers. And the mere mention of her parents’ background in the movie, according to me, establishes it as a saga of Class-Conflict. A butcher’s daughter, aspiring to become a pianist, is almost challenging the strict societal class stereotypes. Melanie meticulously prepares for her entrance exam at the local piano conservatory, something she covets dearly.
The following day comes and Melanie, accompanied by her mother, travels to the conservatory ready to play and impress the selection jury. As the little girl sits down at the piano and begins playing her piece confidently, an overzealous patron barges into the room and requests an autograph from the jury chairwoman, a famous concert pianist Ariane Fouchecort (Catherine Frot). Ariane basking in the glory of her recognition, without thinking or consideration for the girl, signs the provided picture for her fan. Respectfully, Melanie stops her playing whilst the exchange occurs. However, once the fan leaves, she resumes playing yet the entire event breaks her concentration and she falters. This one callous act destroys Melanie’s dream of being a pianist forever. The next scene we see her locking her piano and putting away the Beethoven bust. Her withdrawal from piano shows her vehement anguish towards the casual attitude of the upper class Fouchecort. It seems Fouchecort, almost representing the elite, upper class, so full with herself, almost shuns away the desperate zeal of this butcher’s daughter to become a pianist. And that is where I too strongly feel the director’s ambition to show class struggle through this unassuming plot of a young girl’s vanquished dreams and her resolve for avengement. Ariane however remains completely oblivious of the damage she has caused.
In a way this anguish against Ariane can also be explained by the eternal class distinction Melanie and her likes constantly suffer from. Melanie’s turn-around from the grips of the social stereotypes, she and her family suffers (a working class butcher’s daughter) could have come through her acceptance in the music school. Through her accidental rejection, seems to set Melanie take up a silent resolve to challenge the very existence of source of upper class arrogance and indifference.
The movie moves forward by few years and we find Melanie, now a diligent internee at a law firm. Her physical appearance has not changed much though with hair still tied up in a ponytail at the back and face wearing the same steely resolve (that she had when she went to appear for the entrance, or had when she put away her piano forever). Soon she pleases her boss and is asked for extension of her duty, to work as a house-keeper to his son. And Melanie appears before Ariane Fouchecort again, the latter being the wife of her boss. Ariane never even recalls someone called Melanie.
This begins an interesting episode in the movie- a chilling suspense where we wait with baited breath, to find how Melanie takes her revenge. Every move of her, her cool silent demeanour suddenly is followed keenly tracing her plan to success.
And Melanie does it in the most unsuspecting way, yet with élan. She gets herself closer to Ariane, already going through a depression. Melanie becomes her confidante, her soul-mate by being her Page Turner. She makes herself indispensible for Ariane, silently being at the background as the insignificant page turner, while Ariane collects the concert accolades. Her chilling cruelty appears in hurting Melanie’s colleague with the cello or in casual chopping of meat in the kitchen. The silent white walls, the fragile vulnerable Ariane and the scheming Melanie set up a thrilling dialect for the movie. Slowly, although through subtle, almost vague hints, we understand Melanie’s plan. She wants to strike hard at Arianne’s apparent source of elite arrogance. The story hints cleverly at the sexual undertones between Ariane and Melanie’s relationship, drawing Ariane desperately close towards Melanie. Ariane is aware of the dangers of this proximity which puts her marital comforts at risk. Yet she is hopelessly trapped within this cob-web of banished, forbidden desire. Finally we find a distraught Ariane losing herself and her class all for Melanie, who leaves silently. No one could ever guess the motive behind her action.
The script is taut, suspenseful and brilliant with both Frot and Francois playing their roles with perfection.
Throughout it is as if a duel between two class strata, where one from the lower stratum, sets on a silent crusade against the completely unsuspecting upper class.
An interesting watch!!!
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