Brief Encounter
Brief Encounter

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Brief Encounter

Forced to adapt to social distancing measures, we’ve traded intimacy for bodiless connection online. It’s nothing to complain about. In fact, I find myself video-calling friends and family more than ever. Each time, I’m surprised by how satisfying these virtual encounters are — so much more than the poor substitutes I thought they would be when lockdown was first announced.

It's perfect viewing for a time of isolation, when we’re all being pressed to see intimacy, and our online relationships, in a different light.

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'Who You Think I Am' with Juliette Binoche, image courtesy of Curzon Artificial Eye.

Recognising the timeliness of Who You Think I Am, Curzon brought forward its UK release date, such that it has sailed into a world making-do with the virtual, while yearning for more. It’s a catfishing story, revolving around an online affair built on denial and deceit, and it’s perfect viewing for a time of isolation, when we’re all being pressed to see intimacy, and our online relationships, in a different light.

Claire Millaud (Juliette Binoche) is an academic quietly reeling from a divorce. As an attempt to distract herself, you suspect, she’s having an affair with a younger man, Ludo. ‘I don’t know why you call me,’ Ludo says coldly in the back of a cab. ‘I could be your son.’ While the words may be meant to sting, Claire does not seem the type for petty mind-games. Then Ludo ghosts her.

Turns out Claire is not above playground tactics (the film makes you wonder if any of us are, if pushed.)

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'Who You Think I Am' with Juliette Binoche, image courtesy of Curzon Artificial Eye.

Turns out Claire is not above playground tactics (the film makes you wonder if any of us are, if pushed.) She creates a fake Facebook profile, initially to spy on Ludo — but then his housemate Alex writes to her online avatar. Claire writes back. Alex replies. These things always start with simple, harmless fun. But soon their back-and-forth builds momentum, eroding the boundaries between Claire and her avatar: 24-year-old Clara.

With the online romance framed by Claire’s subsequent dialogues with her therapist, we know the situation will get out of hand. But in what way, and how far will Claire go? As the story progresses, it’s unclear whether Claire is intoxicated with Alex so much as with the version of herself that Clara represents — or a galvanizing mixture of both. The question is, will Claire ultimately be able to admit to herself all that she’s been denying?

I’ve watched enough of MTV’s Catfish to know there are only so many ways this can play out. With the texture of real life removed, these artificial online love affairs rely on platitudes — ‘I would do anything for you’, and so on. With a lack of proximity comes inflated expectations, great loves so much larger than life; often because they are completely fabricated, of course. Catfish and catfishee alike are involved in a codependent process of shoring up their fiction. Each needs the illusion of the other. Thus, the question — in an episode of Catfish, as it is in Who You Think I Am — is not so much what happens, but why?

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'Who You Think I Am' with Juliette Binoche, image courtesy of Curzon Artificial Eye.

Still, it’s testament to Juliette Binoche that all this sustains our interest for the length of a feature film. Often the real people behind the pixels aren’t as compelling as they first appear — indeed, it’s part of what drives them to create an alternative version of themselves in the first place. A great deal of Who You Think I Am is spent studying Claire’s face, as she in turn studies her screen. With the intoxicating blue glow of her smartphone reflected in her glasses, Binoche masterfully lets us feel the charge of every Send and Received.

We all know what it’s like to anticipate that next message: that little bubble-popping sound when someone is ‘typing’ on Messenger can sometimes be the tune to an eternity. But does that translate to the kind of suspense we expect of the Big Screen? Suffice it to say that in Who You Think I Am those pops, dings and chimes are as mesmerising as they are in real life. Meanwhile, Ibrahim Maalouf’s understated score stitches them together, with piano riffs echoing social media alerts and violins tapping into the melodrama of typed-out exchanges — reflecting the extent to which Claire is immersed in this artificial world.

Everyone is susceptible to its draw. We’re all guilty of exaggerating aspects of ourselves for the personas we curate online, and social media platforms seduce us with well-timed dopamine hits. Add romance to the mix — not to say power — and boom, you’re locked in. At least, Who You Think I Am allows you to see how it might happen. Especially since Claire is not your average catfish. A literature professor, she lectures on the likes of Les Liaisons Dangereux and Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. The former tells of narcissists who use seduction as a weapon, manipulating and exploiting others. The latter is a woman who spends most of her time on stage vapid and passive as a doll — that is, until she slips from the sham her life has become into a dream world. Claire clearly sees the parallels with her own life. And the fact that she does allies you to the idea that she might just be able to author it. Unlike the characters in those narratives, she’s in control of hers. Until she isn’t.

Indeed, the committed catfish wants to confess. Underlying the elaborate curation of an ulterior identity is the desire to be known: to be caught, and thus be revealed for the shameful person they believe themselves to be, deep-down.

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'Who You Think I Am' with Juliette Binoche, image courtesy of Curzon Artificial Eye.

In one scene, on the way to pick up her children, Claire is on the phone to Alex, scrambling to assuage his suspicions. She drives round and round the car park — repeatedly past the incredulous faces of her two sons — in a desperate bid to keep the plates spinning. It’s as good an image as any for a life spiraling out of control, and an example of how Who You Think I Am so deftly switches tone: from comic to erotic, from melodrama to confessional.

Indeed, the committed catfish wants to confess. Underlying the elaborate curation of an ulterior identity is the desire to be known: to be caught, and thus be revealed for the shameful person they believe themselves to be, deep-down; and, paradoxically, to never get caught, and continue an iterative confession of an unlived life — the one that on some level they think they ought to be living. That might be a generalisation, but it’s certainly the case for Claire-Clara. At one point, her therapist asks her if she wants to ‘live another life?’ ‘Not another one,’ Claire snaps, ‘Mine! At last!’ If only identity could be so stable. In an era of ambient intimacy, age-old questions: to what extent can you truly know another person? To what extent do we know ourselves?

By Sammi Gale

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