The Page Turner (French, subtitled), directed by Denis Dercourt, is an understated thriller that spins a tale of class-based terror so gut-wrenchingly genuine that this reviewer can not believe it is not marketed as first-rate social commentary. Reviewed elsewhere as a Hitchcockean psychological melodrama, I offer here a social class analysis of the film.
Child pianist Mélanie Provoust (Déborah Francois) is the daughter of a hard-working but poor butcher (Jacques Bonnaffé). She has a chance to develop her talent in a presumably state-sponsored tuition-free program. Mélanie is nurtured and encouraged by a loving mother (Christine Citti), and slightly more cautious father, who offers to pay for her lessons if she does not pass an upcoming elimination test. In one of the film’s myriad poignant and loaded moments, Melanie refuses the offer.
Mélanie practices diligently for the examination, playing late into the night. At the test, a woman on her panel of judges (Catherine Frot) stops listening, and entertains an autograph-seeker who interrupts her performance. This destroys Melanie’s concentration, and likewise her performance, sealing her doom as a professional pianist.
Later, we learn that the judge is Ariane Fouchécourt, a bourgeois concert pianist married to a wealthy lawyer (Pascal Greggory). A mature Mélanie tracks her down, and secures a position in her home, caring for her son. Mélanie spends the remainder of the film avenging Fouchécourt’s disrespect for her, and by association for her family, and her class.
Mélanie’s class loyalty is affirmed throughout the film. She calls her parents several times, genuinely concerned about their well-being. When she talks to her mother on her cell phone, her sinister exterior disappears and we see Mélanie’s true, proletarian fortitude. Her bourgeois bosses never see behind her subtle physical beauty and clear suppressed talent, their recognition of which secures Melanie a position as Madame Fouchécourt’s page-turner. Mélanie plays the demon beautifully, straight-faced, winning every hand, and without losing or revealing her true self.
For example, in a marvelously cruel work of sabotage, Mélanie encourages the Fouchécourts’ spoiled and privileged son, an aspiring concert pianist, to speed up his playing, causing him to develop tendonitis. Mélanie uses her sexuality in smart, surprising ways also. To say more would spoil the fun of this remarkable film.
A good reading of Frantz Fanon, or any author who writes about the psychological impact of class inequity, would benefit a person going to see this film. Mélanie is genuinely disturbed – but for good reasons.
I am sorry other reviewers missed Dercourt’s clear and obvious social critique. This is a marvelously entertaining, if a bit chilling, film. It is a must-see.
