After a certain amount of time, separation and divorce come down to the same emotional ordeal, eloquently encompassed by the title "We Won't Grow Old Together". Maurice Pialat's separation inspired an autobiographical novel but as if words couldn't bring the intended catharsis, he needed images, dialogues, shouts, cries and even silences to show the true nature of the beast.
I went through divorce myself and I still remember the six-paged letters with carefully chosen words, the pride-swallowing pleas and the whole affective bargain ... the truth with separation is that you don't mourn a person, or a relationship, but the very idea that the one you loved wouldn't be the life-partner you expected, nor the hand that'll softly touch yours in the deathbed. As someone said: "the woman of your life is the woman of your death". There's a symbolic death indeed upon separation, which doesn't make it an act but a process, a slow one going through the five commonly known stages: denial, anger, sadness, fear and resignation. Pialat used them all as necessary seasonings to a dish served in the sober colors of reality, using real locations to dramatize real episodes of his past experience.
Pialat could have played the leading role himself but I guess he wouldn't have brought that level of authenticity with another person but the woman he loved. And Jean Yanne was too painfully real as Jean, a grisly, gruff, disenchanted but oddly magnetic filmmaker. He's a divorced man in his early 40s venting his past frustrations on the much younger Catherine, played by Marlène Jobert. The ghosts of his failed marriage keep haunting his present, reminding constantly that Catherine is not his ex-wife Françoise (Macha Méril). Still, the complicity seems in place in the beginning; they have the interactions of a man and a woman who've known each other for years, silences aren't awkward and there's room for tenderness.
Suddenly we see Jean throwing a tantrum on Catherine struggling to handle the sound boom while he's filming in a crowed street. He insults her, pushes her, shouts so loudly that even the sanguine Mediterranean bystanders retort. Today, Jean would be considered a bully and end up arrested by the Police or filmed by a smartphone and have his career destroyed; the film reminds us of the way violence toward women was, if not systemic, at the very least was trivialized. And despite his behavior, Jean keeps his edge over Catherine, even her parents don't dare put him in his place. Maybe it's Jean's age, his strong masculinity, the way he can swiftly switch from anger to gentleness, or a possessive spirit that's only a twisted version of love.. or is it just that Catherine loves him and like many enamored people, falls into the biggest trap of a toxic relationships: the false conviction that you can change someone.
The bullying culminates in the memorable car scene where he delivers such a harsh and odious "reasons you suck" speech even Yanne was reluctant to go through it, calling Catherine 'vulgar', 'ordinary', 'ugly' and concluding with "it's over". The face of Jobert says it all; just when you think she's at the verge of teary explosion, she keeps a dignified face; words don't hurt her anymore. And she's right to spare her feelings, next thing you know, they're back together again. And that 'false start' (or 'false finish') sets the narrative pattern: an alternation of arguments and reconciliations. The more they swear not to see each other again, the more rapidly they reunite. The repetitive episodic structure might give the wrong impression of a story spun in circles with nothing really happening but since when does reality rely on plot requirements?
The whole ups-and-downs schema actually makes two points. First, undoing a relationship is as difficult as building it, if not more. Secondly, if you keep an attentive eye, you'll see that Catherine does evolve. While Jean fails to communicate with her without the uses of patronizing rants and violence, verbal and physical, Catherine realizes that she didn't stay with him out of love, but of fear. Fueled with stoic determination, her detachments takes its slow but certain path to the finishing line, finally responding to the overarching viewer's questioning: when the hell will she leave Jean?
And in that psychological arm-wrestling, Jean realizes he lost the upper hand and therefore changes the tactic: he writes romantic letters, shows his sensitive and benevolent side yet smoothly but surely, Catherine lets her hand slip. She becomes 'Françoise', the absent figure to haunt Jean's present. A confused Jean is reduced to pathetic investigations about Catherine's new man, asking her parents how he looks, how old he is etc?. That's indeed the final stage of grief in its manhood-offended expression: when we accept losing someone, we hope it's for the best. Jean still believes he has a saying on Catherine's life while she shines through her absence. Jean's confusion illustrates one of separation's paradoxes: bringing people closer. Separation is even harder in a time without Internet or social networks, when immediate dating wasn't commonplace.
Yanne, a famous TV comedian and chansonnier, reveals his dramatic side in a performance that earned him the Best Actor prize at Cannes and boos from the audience (as if they had projected their own disdain for Jean), Yanne didn't intend the festival anyway, he and Pialat didn't get along, and it is possible that the director exploited it to enhance Jean's bitterness. Jean ends up consoling himself that there's more fish in the sea and a free Catherine, happily swimming in that sea. As tough as it is, separation isn't that bad after all.
Still, what an enigmatic character, leaving so many interrogations marks: was he truly in love? Did his first failed relationship twist his capability for love commitment? Pialat's merit is to humbly allow viewers to make up their own opinions, as if he was a riddle for himself as well.
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