VENERABLE French filmmaker Alain Resnais (he gave us the classics “Last Year at Marienbad” and “Hiroshima Mon Amour”) keeps on keeping on at age 84. Witness his latest, “Private Fears in Public Places,” based on the play by Alan Ayckbourn.
The beautifully filmed and acted drama, relocated from Ayckbourn’s London to a snowy Paris, follows the tangled and overlapping lives of six lovelorn people, not counting the bed-ridden old man who is heard (and how!) but not seen.
There is a real estate salesman (Andre Dussollier) and his secretly erotic secretary (Sabine Azema); a young couple (Laura Morante and Lambert Wilson) on the verge of breaking up; and a dignified bartender (Pierre Arditi) and his much younger sister (Isabelle Carre), who is searching for love on the Internet.
Over a period of several days, each tries to escape his or her solitary existence – but to no avail.
At an age when most people are reduced to waiting for the Grim Reaper, Resnais is challenging life as if he were half a century younger. “Private Fears in Public Places,” originally called “Coeurs,” is clever, wise and witty. Who could ask for more?
PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES
In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 120 minutes. Not rated (sexuality). At the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza.