Psychotherapist Francois Ozon On Finding Yourself - Relationships, Reviews, Sex

Two-faced lover

• France, Belgium, 2017
• Director: Francois Ozon
• Starring: Marina Vact, Jeremy Rainier, Jacqueline Bisset

François Ozon examines the story of the protagonists as a receptionist

Phantom Pain

Chloe - this is the name of the main character of the film "Two-Faced Lover" - suffers from abdominal pain, and the gynecologist, not finding a physical problem, sends her to a psychologist. Chloe chooses a male psychologist. In the first sessions, the specialist does not utter a word, probably due to the fact that the client reveals herself, her personality in detail, speaks out her experiences.

At one of the subsequent meetings, he will ask a clarifying question, and she will note this. The therapy brings a positive result, the abdominal pain almost disappears. After the psychologist refuses to continue the receptions because of the feelings that he has for his client.

Chloe and Paul begin to live together, and one day the girl finds in his things evidence of a change of surname, and later accidentally sees from the bus window a man whom she takes for her lover. Chloe conducts her investigation and learns that Paul has a twin brother, also a psychologist, not recognized by Paul, cut off from his life.

Since Paul no longer works with Chloe, another pro, François Ozon, joins the game. The subsequent development of the plot can be perceived as reality or interpreted as a symptom familiar to each of us.

Chloe suffers from abdominal pain, and this suffering turns out to be due to the fact that there was another fetus in the womb, her sister. Feeling this or experiencing a mismatch of herself, what she is - and what she could be, the heroine tries different models of behavior. She looks natural, developing a relationship with Paul, cheating on him with his brother, learning the details of their past like a brave detective, and hiding from the outside world, sleeping with a neighbor when she becomes scared alone in the apartment.

Distorted reflection

The heroine is looking for the truth about her man's life, but isn't she in search of herself? What if the dominant character and his losing, weak twin are two parts of her character? Doesn't this opposite seem close to each of us?

What am I really, strong or weak, gentle or aggressive, conquering or inferior? What is more in me - a winner who received this life, or a second, follower, seeking his place, not given to him immediately, at birth?

If you look at the history that separated the brothers, is it not logical to ask yourself a number of questions? For example, how often, when we feel weak, are we ready to use forbidden, dishonest methods? Aggression and cunning - a sign of weakness or an excuse for wanting to be the first, beloved and special person for others and yourself? Are all methods good at winning your place in the sun?

Chloe, walking through many mirrors and winding stairs on the way to the first and then the second psychologist, as if a traveler looking for a compass in an endless number of roads leading to the answer to these inexhaustible questions.

Parallel relationships with twin brothers develop according to completely different scenarios. Chloe seems to know two versions of the same person. As a result, receiving support and calmness from Paul, and from Louis - animal, passionate and lively sex, she says to the second: “When I'm with you, I think about him. When I'm with him, I think of you."

External mirroring does not at all imply that the set of actions and experiences in a real person will be the same. Living the story of twin brothers, the heroine reveals herself, finds one of her incarnations - under the watchful guidance of the psychotherapist Ozone. Chloe's inner changes are reflected in her work. After a modeling career that involves showing herself, she becomes a curator at a museum. Now her main task is to observe. The expositions correspond to her transformation.

Initially, Chloe was placed in a space with photographs of children - and she herself, like a small child, is just beginning to get to know herself. At the moment of the first conversation with Louis, she walks past the installation of intertwined trunks and branches of trees - weaves a new man into her life. Further, paintings-abstractions, similar to fancy flowers, in which you get lost, as in sensations and reflections on life. Finally, closer to the end of the film, human organs several times larger than their actual size fill the hall like monuments. Chloe's throwings also form into a single solution, and her miscarriage turns out to be the remains of her sister's embryo, which she absorbed in her mother's womb.

Finding yourself

Chloe's mother appears towards the end of the film, asks for forgiveness for her indifference, confesses her love to her daughter. It's time to materialize and declare yourself - when your child has already experienced all the stories for which his director is compared, including with Hitchcock. However, it was the mother who Ozone entrusted with the phrase “Love never saves”.

The mother archetype is too important a topic for Ozone to include in his story. He creates a gallery of mothers, strong, a little strange, suffering and unable to make their daughters happy. However, Chloe and her mother still have a chance to really be present with each other in life after hugs, confessions and tears at the end of their first meeting in many years.

The story of finding yourself and your life ends quite hopefully. The girl is no longer looking for her alternative, is not fighting for her exclusivity, she accepts herself as such - the one and only. Also, symbolically or realistically (depending on your perception), she kills her man's twin, making him the only one possible next to her.

Difficult choice and acceptance of oneself - the path shown by Ozone as a thriller, each of us goes. Even if the quest becomes like a horror movie, self-acceptance is the ending to which the heroes of "Two-Faced Lover" come.

The last vision of the heroine in the finale is parting with past experiences. The twin sister watches as Chloe and Paul have sex, and then breaks the window pane, disappearing and leaving us in fragments, similar to the messengers of a new, free life without mirror images of reality.