I love director Claire Denis, but I always filed Let The Sunshine In (2017) within the “I’ll get around to it” category within her filmography. I think it’s really the fault of the English title and the Hair musical associations I had in my head from it (the French title I think translates more towards Bright Sunshine In), that and the poster image of Juliette Binoche with eyes closed embracing the “sun” as it were. And yet, finally watching it, straight from the first scene where Binoche’s character Isabelle is having sex and asks her lover if he’s going to come (or “cum” as the English subtitles say), there’s something more to the movie than the French Film Festival romcom the marketing might present it as.
I appreciated that there was still a certain grit to the film, a reality towards the emotions and the physical aspects of relationship, even if it is ultimately lighter fare in comparison to other Denis films, particular the ones she’s also made with Binoche like High Life or even Both Sides Of The Blade. As we follow a divorced middle-aged artist navigating men, often fragmented in that we receive key scenes or encounters rather than the beginning, middle and end of each relationship, there is a growing dissatisfaction and yearning for a true love. Denis has always had a way with depicting sex, often less about a male gaze approach to nudity, and more about the tactile physicality of skin on skin, and the awkward moments when lovemaking takes an emotional turn due to a comment or a gesture. Between comforting scenes of off-hand connections, like an honest moment with a cab driver, or hearing a song that moves you in a bar, and the everyday setbacks of crying alone at night, telling your friend dark secrets in a cafe bathroom, or feeling another opportunity collapse into dissatisfaction without it being explicitly stated, just talked around.
Loved the straight ahead close ups of the luminescent Binoche during conversations, and the ways in which Stuart A. Staples score might slowly make itself known during a scene. Streamed on Kanopy. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 