Intimate Strangers

It seems that women tend to differentiate “intimacy” and “love.” On the other hand, men often mistake intimacy and love. Eighty percent of tragedies involve this difference between men and women in interpreting the relationship between intimacy and love differently, depending on the situation.

The French movie “Intimate Strangers,” which opens on May 25, is about how sometimes intimacy is even more intense than love, and portrays this truth through just the actors’ words and expressions in a clever and moving manner.

Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) has decided to go to a psychiatrist because of marital problems. She mistakes the office room number and enters the office of financial advisor William (Fabrice Luchini). Anna starts to air out deep secrets of her personal life, and William, who was not repulsed by this aspect of Anna, doesn’t tell her the truth and listens. Anna’s “consultations” are thus established, and one day Anna’s husband appears before William.

This movie establishes an unrealistic and extreme story, taking its form through throwing in light jokes here and there, but afterwards you realize they have buried the truth about love between men and women in the film in a very surprising manner. The truth in this film is that intimacy is more important than love, and intimacy is just telling one’s story to someone else and listening to someone else’s story in a familiar way, growing from communication. Through superb contrasts between “a woman who likes to talk” and “a man who likes to listen,” “a husband who is not intimate” and “intimate strangers” and “intimacy” and “love,” the movie delivers a universal romance, going one step further than a perfect happy ending.

Even amid the rapid-fire conversation, the attraction of “Intimate Strangers” is that from start to finish, the word “love” is never uttered. Even as the movie completely captures the quivering of the two people’s gazes and momentary licking of lips, it ultimately rejects the omniscient view, which allows full entry into their minds, and provides an exquisite distance which allows for some ambiguity. This is to present the truth that even though to the world they have only exchanged a handshake, they have had a relationship more intimate than they have with their own spouses. Maybe it’s even true that once the word “love” is uttered, the love is gone. Director: Fabrice Lecomte. Opens at the Seoul Cinecube Independent. Rated for ages 15 and up.

Seung-Jae Lee sjda@donga.com