Cinema Vitæ

One summer during college, I worked at a youth camp. At the end of each two-week camp session, our resident bakers would prepare a special dessert. This culinary masterpiece — the Baked Alaska — contained a base of warm cake on which sat a decedent layer of cold vanilla ice cream followed by a topping of meringue. This dessert par excellence overwhelmed the taste buds with flavor and demanded slow savoring from its audience. Like pearls before swine, however, the campers scarfed it down with little regard for the Michelangelo before them.

Not I, however. In fact, near the end of the summer, I went to the kitchen to watch the creation of these true delicacies and there I discovered the painstaking labor required to bring about the balance of temperature and flavor that is the Baked Alaska. Like a precision clock, the bakers moved the warm cakes from the oven, applied the ice cream, and blow-torched the meringue to perfection.

I’ve Loved You So Long is cinematic Baked Alaska. A piece of film-making assembled with precision; slowly crafted to bring about a climax of rich goodness that demands savoring. Kristin Scott Thomas gives a tour de force performance as Juliette Fontaine, a woman recently released from prison for murder who moves in with her sister and her family. Every glance from Scott Thomas, every facial movement, speaks volumes more than her painstakingly extracted words. Like watching the creation of those exquisite desserts is this story of a woman beginning again to breath . . . and love.

Don’t expect a fast turning plot line with this film, but do anticipate the gradual creation of a masterpiece. The story itself may lose points for originality, but it more than makes up for it with its ability to couch scenes in the stuff of ordinary life. Never once did I catch myself saying, “Oh, please, that would never happen!” Change occurs over time and in the daily activities of life. We may not see it at first, but with each new smile, touch, or word spoken a gradual turning is revealed. And in I’ve Loved You So Long, that turning is mainly toward life and not death. A character in the film does choose the way of death and it stands in stark contrast to each decision Juliette makes toward life.

I have never hidden my love for films with a happy ending. Life is hard enough without having to maintain a steady diet of stories of suffering. Sure we may have to go down to go up, but by Jove what a pleasure to receive a Baked Alaska at the summit and not a shove down the next hill. I’ve Loved You So Long may require some descending, but the ascent will seem like all joy when you finally reach its rich conclusion.