Word: accompanist
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...Accompanist" is not a typical World War II flick. Though what action there is takes place in occupied France and war-torn London, reference to international conflicts serve only to illuminate the nature of individual characters. Focusing on Irene Brice (Elena Safonova), a diva on the brink of universal success, her husband Charles (Richard Bohringer), and her impoverished accompanist, Sophie Vasseur (Romane Bohringer), the movie--through lighting, facial close-ups, music, and symbols--studies personalities, not history...
This initial scene established both the tone and symbolism of the movie. Sophie, whom Irene hires, and who becomes the diva's personal maid as well as accompanist, is shown always in shadow, often in transit, and frequently on staircases. Indeed, her nondescript character becomes almost obtrusive in the film. Irene, by contrast, is invariably in the spotlight, observed not her elusive lover, Jacques (Samuel Labarthe). While Sophie is famished and shabbily dressed, a perpetual onlooker, Irene, the consummate actress, is adorned with smiles and the white dress she will wear in performance throughout the movie. Though the characters appears...
...film that concentrates on characterization, "The Accompanist" is surprisingly spares in dialogue. This dearth is amply commpensated through visual and musical means. Frequently the camera focused on the face of a single character of several seconds at a time, revealing subtle change of expression music, as in one scene in which Irene and Sophie rehearse. In this episode, unlike those of most movies featuring piano players, the camera picks out only the characters' faces, not even expending a single shot on Sophie's hands...
This type of representation is quite effective in the context of "The Accompanist." The film constantly thwarts the desires of the audience to enter into the though process of a specific individual .Irene is seen only from the outside, through the eyes of her husband and Sophie, while Sophie herself, who, almost pressed into the position of indentured servant, should be the most sympathetic character, seems so devoid of human emotion that she is as colorless in personality as in visual depiction. The audience perceives the principal characters as they perceive each other, solely through sight and sound...
...secure their happiness together. The other principled characters is Benoit Weizman, a young Jewish communist and aspiring Resistance fighter whom Sophie meets when travelling from Portugal to London. These who characters and their relationships with Irene and Sophie respectively, illuminate both affinities and distinctions between the diva and accompanist...