Any film starring the mercurial French actress Isild le Besco is worth seeing. The twenty-two year old actress is oddly beautiful, without the smooth, stylish poise one comes to expect from French films. At times, in fact, she can appear almost demented. Le Besco wears her long blond hair down to her waist, has a slight overbite, often bounces when she should be walking, undresses with absolute ease, and is possession of the most genuine, awe-inspiring smile in cinema today. When the moment calls for it, Le Besco radiates such pure happiness that she makes me wonder if anyone else has ever properly experienced the emotion.
Le Besco came on to the scene in 2000 with four films, including Benoît Jacquot's "Sade," starring opposite French icon Daniel Auteil. I first discovered her in Anne-Sophie Birot's coming of age film "Girl's Can't Swim," where she played a petulant sexpot teen, and was amazed by her again as the clumsy waitress with an inheritance in Philippe LeGuay's ensemble drama "The Cost Of Living."
Le Besco is the heart and soul of Jacquot's new film "A Tout De Suite." She plays a free-spirited art student who lives a seemingly proper borgeois life in 1970s Paris until she falls in love with a mysterious Moroccan man (Ouassini Embarek.) When she learns that he is involved in a failed bank robbery--hostages were taken and a man killed--she doesn't hesitate: immediately, she offers to hide her lover and his partner, and then, again without question, agrees to flee the country. Her love is real.
The journey takes the couple to Spain, Morocco, and beyond. Moodily shot in black and white, "A Tout de Suite" revels in close-ups of his compelling star, and Benoit takes his time to tell the story. Throughout the film, Le Besco's character remains nameless. Like the innocent, wide-eyed young man who turns out to be a criminal, her character remains something a mystery. Given the ease with which the lovers meet and the anything-goes sexual freedom of the time, the fierce quality of her loyalty comes as a powerful surprise.
