Writer and Director: Jethro Massey
Paul & Paulette take a bath is the debut film, billed as a dark romantic comedy, of British-French director, Jethro Massey. Paul, played with a sort of baffled innocence by Jérémie Galiano, is a young American photographer in Paris. He becomes fascinated with Paulette (Maria Benati) whom he first sees kneeling at the Place de la Concorde, lowering her head to the pavement in a gesture of obeisance. She has, it seems, an obsession with the death of Marie Antoinette. Paul claims this was not the exact location of the guillotining and that he knows where it actually happened. They go there together, but sniffing the air, Paulette declares she knows it’s not the place after all. Nonetheless she tells Paul to slice off her long hair at the neck, à la Marie-Antoinette and imagines the moment of death.
In an interview, Massey says the starting point for the film was seeing the photo David Sherman took of Lee Miller in Hitler’s bathtub on the day Hitler himself committed suicide and perhaps viewers would benefit from this knowledge in trying to make sense of this self-consciously weird film.
Paul tunes into Paulette’s fetish for places where murders took place and together they visit them to recreate scenes of death. They visit Père Lachaise to see the Communards’ Wall where soldiers and officers of the Paris Comune were executed by death squad in 1871. Paul later wonders what a communion host tastes like. Blood and tears and a hint of pine, she tells him. They play the same game with other notables. Genghis Khan would taste peaty. Elvis Presley’s flavour would be tequilla sunrise. They share an obsession with getting hold of Presley’s pubic hair. As comedy goes, Paul & Paulette Take a Bath is very much a matter of taste.
Theirs is, naturally, a quirky relationship. Paulette wants to get close to Paul, but her real desire is for women. She continues to grieve the breakup with Margarita, her ex. The decisive issue was Paulette’s reluctance to take Margarita to meet her parents. Meanwhile at work Paul becomes the object of desire for his boss Valerie. His co-workers refer to her as Goebbels, which perhaps is the reason he has a fling with her, though it’s clear his heart is set on Paulette.
The pair become inseparable, but still haven’t had sex. It’s more about their shared fascination with game playing. Don’t put me on a pedestal, she tells him, before taking him to her parents’, insisting to them he is just a ‘copain’, not a lover. But it is here Paul finds the courage to issue intimate commands as he photographs her – insisting she stands on a pedestal – and they finally make love. This is only a stop on the route, however. They leave swiftly after Paulette has a blazing row with her parents. There is more drama to come when Paul rents the very apartment where one of the perpetrators of the Bataclan attack took place.
Paul & Paulette Take a Bath is beautifully shot by cinematographers Isarr Eiriksson and Marius Dahl and there are some appealing historical images from Parisian monuments as they were being built. But it can be a frustrating watch if you don’t buy into the film’s quirkiness.
Paul and Paulette Take a Bath is in UK & Irish cinemas 5th September www.conic.film/bath
