clouds of Sils Maria

I watched The Clouds of Sils Maria a couple of weeks ago, but it somehow slipped through my blogging notes. I was reminded by a small and unexpected advertisement for the hotel used in the movie, which turned up in the Economist. Talk about niche advertising.

The movie is about an actress (played by Juliette Binoche) who is at the peak of her career. She is asked to perform a revival of a play where she'd been the young challenge Sigrid to an older woman Helena, but this time to take the role of the older woman.

In international star show-biz terms she has Kristen Stewart (from Twilight) as her phone and blackberry juggling personal assistant and they take a train to the beautiful Swiss Engadin mountains and onward to the remote Sils Maria to rehearse.

Then we get the excellent interactions between Binoche's character and Stewart and the arrival of scandal laden Chloë Grace Moretz, who is to take the role of the younger Sigrid to Binoche's Helena.

The interplay is fascinating, with dialogue that twists and could be from the play being rehearsed, or maybe it is their real-life dialogue. There's a slow cloudiness that take hold in the woven relationships.

The layers are complex, and can include Binoche playing a version of herself, then presenting as the international star, as the rehearsing actress, as well as elements of the younger Sigrid and the older Helena.

Altogether an interesting character study of Binoche's 'Maria Enders'.

As a movie, it runs quite like a mainly two and occasional three-hander play, albeit set in a luscious and sweeping backdrop of the Alps.