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TIME TO LEAVE / Francois Ozon (2005)

September 11th, 2006 by Scott Marks

Francois Ozon’s TIME TO LEAVE (2005)

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Le Temps qui reste (2005)

Written & Directed by: François Ozon

Cast: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Daniel Duval, Marie Rivière, Christian Sengewald, Louise-Anne Hippeau, Henri de Lorme, Walter Pagano, Violetta Sanchez, Ugo Soussan Trabelsi, Alba Gaïa Kraghede Bellugi, Victor Poulouin, Laurence Ragon, Thomas Gizolme

Aspect Ratio: cinemascope5.jpg

Genres: Drama

Running Time: 85 min.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

In his latest film, Francois Ozon, France’s master of erotic despair, continues a “trilogy about mourning” that began with Under the Sand. No matter how stylishly he may serve it, what remains is a basic set-‘em-up-to-watch-‘em-die.

Time to Leave tells the story Romain (Melvil Poupard, in what may amount to the performance of the year), a successful thirty-one-year-old gay fashion photographer living the good life. After collapsing during a photo shoot, his doctor informs Romain that AIDS isn’t going to end his life, but a malignant tumor. The cancer has spread to such an extent that even with chemotherapy, which Romain declines, he only has three months to live.


This is a story about one man living life with an ever-tightening noose around his neck. Instead of transforming his last days into one long party, Romain grieves in his own selfish manner with little or no interest in making peace with those around him. His parents are ridiculously supportive; dad even sits in the car while his son runs out to score some coke. Romain hates his sister and proves it by refusing to photograph her children because they sprang from her. His final instruction to his lover is, “I don’t care. I just want you gone.”

While the storyline may be hackneyed, Ozon’s presentation is anything but. When Romain finally consents to take a picture of his niece and nephew it is without their mother’s knowledge. In a rare instance of a director knowing precisely how to employ a rack focus shot, we see Romain in the bushes behind his sister surreptitiously photographing the children.

A great deal of the film focuses on Romain’s attempts to come to terms with the inner-child he despises. The only person he informs of his illness is his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau in the Maria Ouspenskia role). The reason he decides to confide in her is because she too is old, and like him will die soon.

Early memories come rushing back while at grandma’s house. According to the director, “facing death is like seeing yourself as a child,” and throughout the picture we are presented with flashbacks to Romain’s youth. The first image of a child alone on the beach heralds sentiment, something normally out of line for the director. While it may not have the flagrant manipulative pull of Terms of Endearment, I was disappointed that the generally detached Ozon asked us to reach for a hankie.

Never one to shy away from championing deviant sexual behavior, I was wondering how Ozon was going to work his patented brand of kink into this somber material. He doesn’t disappoint. No one is more surprised than Romain when he accepts an infertile couple’s request for him to impregnate the wife. In the year’s most sensually charged scene, Romain joins the wife and husband in a steamy baby-making ménage.

According to the press notes, Time to Leave was inspired by Douglas Sirk’s supreme 1950s melodramas. If that’s the case, the film is a resounding failure. Sirk was all about style, presenting biting satiric indictments of his tortured, narcissistic characters. No matter how brittle their emotions, Sirk’s surface visuals refused to simply compliment his characters’ miseries. Check out Imitation of Life or Written on the Wind; if anything, his ironic use of cheery color plays diametrically against the story’s grain. Ozon’s dance of death is good, but not that good.

Here is a rare instance where a film’s poster may actually provide a clue. In an image that never appears in the film, we see Romain lying naked with a newborn infant at his side. Is it a summation of the birth and death of Romain or an artist in bed with his final act of creation?

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical