Joyce Glasser reviews Fidelio: Alice’s Journey (Fidelio: l’odyssée d’Alice)
Most of Fidelio: Alice’s Journey, an original and insightful look at 21st century feminism, takes place at sea where 30-year-old Alice (Ariane Labed) is serving as an assistant mechanic on the symbolically named Fidelio (faithful) with an all-male, international crew of all ages.
This impressive feature debut from French Co-Writer/Director Lucie Borleteau, shot largely on board a huge, rusty freighter, gives a starring role to the beautiful, charismatic Greek-French actress Ariane Labed. But the film is less about fidelity than it is about how a woman adapts to life in an all male environment by becoming one of the boys. Borleteau eschews the clichés of gender politics leaving us with a complex heroine who loses her identity at sea.
Alice (Labed) believes she has finally found marriage material in Dutch graphic novelist Felix (Anders Danielsen Lie). They spend a romantic last day together, making love on a secluded beach, before Alice begins a new job on board the Fidelio where she is called in to replace an older engineer who died on the job.
On board she finds herself in an awkward situation as her former lover and mentor Gael (Melvil Poupaud), is in command. Gael is now married (although, he claims, about to be divorced) with children. At first Alice shuns Gael, writing romantic letters to Felix and reading the intimate confessions in a diary the womanising, hard-drinking dead engineer whose berth she sleeps in.
But Alice seldom sleeps alone after both she and Gael realise they are still attracted to one another. Alice encounters subtle sexism on board, and it is probably not the first time when we see her decisively send an opportunist intruder packing. But she fits in with the guys by focusing on work and letting their attachment to girlie posters and sexist banter go by unnoticed. While she can laugh with the men; go out on the town drinking and dancing during shore leave; and even seduce a young crew member, there are limits – some, embarrassingly imposed by her male colleagues.
When Alice is promoted to Chief Mechanic, you notice a subtle change as she realises she is officially superior to most of the crew. As if experimenting in her new status, Alice seduces a young sailor who tells her forthrightly that he loves his girlfriend and is there that night just for the sex. So is Alice. But a few of her colleagues who care about her as a friend, warn Alice that she has crossed the line, while an electrical failure goes unnoticed when she is on duty but in bed with Gael.
All this might make life on board the ironically named Fidelio more diverting, but the old sailor’s diary shows that a profligate life catches up with you and leaves you unfulfilled. When she is reunited with Felix at her family’s house during shore leave, tensions mount as Alice is faced with some hard choices.
Greek-French actress Labed has the kind of face that changes in every scene, and, without make-up, has a refreshing girl-next-door look, that with a touch of make-up becomes strikingly beautiful. Audiences might struggle to place Labed, who has appeared in several art house films, including playing the gymnast in Alps or a maid in the upcoming The Lobster, a favourite at Cannes. Her starring role (she is in every scene) in Fidelio: Alice’s Journey has already been rewarded with some awards and positive reviews in France, but we will surely be seeing more of her.
We will surely be seeing more of Lucie Borleteau, too, whose work with her actors is matched by her technical prowess in shooting on a freighter, with its tight spaces, claustrophobic underbelly and its particular mechanical sounds that are contrasted with the very human sounds of life and love on board. Borleteau has the ability to turn the ship into not only a secluded world of shared meals, mutual dependence, and camaraderie but also into a character in its own right.
