"The Birth of Love" "Bye, Hélène!" "I'll go too!" "I need some cigarettes." "How'd you meet Hélène?" " Why ask me that now?" " I don't know." "Just wondering." "Meetings don't matter." "What happens later does!" "Maybe... but I'd still like to know." "We met like people do..." "Stupidly." "Stupidly?" "Yes, through mutual friends." "Then we met again." "At first I didn't go for her." "She was interesting but..." "something held me back." "So how'd it happen?" "She took the first step." "I must say she did it with class." "We were at her place." "A kid was asleep in her bed." "A niece or somebody..." "When the evening ended, she said, "That's very impolite of me!"" "She put the kid in another bed." "Not bad, eh?" "Not bad!" "You loved her?" "No." "But later I did." "And her?" "She loved you?" "Maybe..." "Yes." "A pack of Gauloises!" "6 francs 40!" "Thanks!" "So long!" "Stop fussing around!" "I'm not upset anymore." "If you don't want to cook, we'll go out!" "I don't want to go out." "Don't you love me anymore?" "What a question!" "Just tell me!" "I can't answer you like that." "So give me a kiss!" "There!" "Allies Preparing For Lengthy War" "Planes Bomb Port of Bassora" "Lenin was almost right again." "About what?" "Lenin was almost right again!" "About what?" "!" ""The capitalists sell us the rope we hang ourselves with. "" "He should've added..." ""Let's hope they give us time to make slipknots!"" "I don't see what you mean." "A French-made A-bomb could hit us if we decide to go." "Where?" "To war!" "It's ready!" "Let's eat!" "Paul!" "Come here!" "I'm silly!" "You're not like the others." "You look at me when you do it." "You don't... do it... just to get it wet!" "Got a thing?" "Hello!" "We'd like..." "I'd like some..." " How do you say?" " Condoms." "Condoms." " A large box?" " A small one." " A box of 6." " Yes." "22 francs!" "I've lived alone for the past 2 years." "In Germany I can't live anymore with a guy." "Want to know why?" "Obviously!" "It's not obvious that you'd want to know." "You might just be being nice after screwing me." "Here's why." "I don't want to find myself in love again... because of when I was first in love... my 1 st love..." "Werner." "Your hands are beautiful." "So were his." "When he needed a drink, they'd shake." "His entire body would shake." "Once we went on vacation." "We never did 'cause we were always broke." "He was always on vacation." "It was worse than if he had a job." "He never stopped doing nothing!" "Understand?" "Even at night!" "He'd shake all night." "I could never sleep." "And in the morning, he'd shake." "What'd you do for money?" "I wrote my articles and... his parents sent him a little bit." "My last memory of him is of him in the hospital." "Locked away." "It was all barred up!" "He was lying on his bed." "A nurse came in... to give him some pills." "I thought..." ""This is my last memory of him. " That's what I thought." "The pills were the same color as the ones... he took with his brown ale." "It was as if, after all... there or free elsewhere... it wasn't very different for him." "I shouldn't say that." "It's not good for you." "For me?" "For you, for me..." "Understand?" "If you were available, I'd stay with you." "Want me to carry that thing?" "See?" "It's a nice day!" "No..." "You're right." "The weather's lousy." "Shall we live together again?" " Saying that for her?" " No." "For us... for me... for Pierre." "Do you love me?" "If you don't, then it's not worth it." "I can manage on my own." "Love me?" "I love you all." "I mean me!" "You, me..." "Pierre, her..." "It's all the same!" "But me!" "It's all family!" "The family's all that counts." "It's funny." "What?" "Look!" "The window of the room... where Jean shot himself." "It's funny." "Just think!" "The Minister of Defense has resigned!" "It's great!" "Then we won't have war!" "Yes, we will." "Then why's it so great?" "But even so... a war minister who... doesn't want war, that's good, eh?" "If it won't stop a war, what good is it?" "Hello..." "Let's see..." "This is a Caesarean." "Do you still want a spinal?" "Yes." "And not go to sleep?" "Then get ready." "They'll come for you." "Afraid?" "Here!" "Have a good look!" "Wait..." "She doesn't like it!" "What's that?" "To help them breathe." "Otherwise, it bothers them." "At birth they swallow some fluid." "It bothers their breathing so we vacuum... the mouth and the nose." "It makes them cough... and helps them spit out all that stuff." "The mouth once more..." "and it'll be over!" "It's not nice!" "There you go, miss!" "There!" "Hold her head up!" "Yes, that's perfect!" "Beautiful, isn't she?" "Have you heard?" "The war's over." "Yes." "150,000 dead." "What's happened to you?" "They don't want me to write." " They said, "That's enough!"" " Who said?" "I don't know." "I don't know who said it but... it came from someone high up." "Very high up!" "By the way..." "I have a daughter... named Judith." "Your Grace..." "Paul, maybe you... needn't go up to her the 1 st time." "Maybe you could stay by the chair." "I don't know..." "It's a matter of instinct." "But it's important you look at her." "Keep your eyes on Michèle!" "Let's take it again from that point... from the end of Bernard's speech." "Besides... my client doesn't have as much strength... as this woman who's used to physical labor." "But she..." "But she..." "Never mind, keep going, Paul!" "She looks well-fed..." "Pull!" "Go on!" "Look at her!" "Pull him harder to you, Marie!" "Really pull!" "Try to make him yours!" "Pull!" "Maybe exaggerate it a bit!" "Grab his front!" "Harder!" "The same thing!" "Really pull!" "Maybe not quite as long but for real!" "Give him something to worry about." "Till you nearly hurt him!" "Maybe a shorter tug but more real!" "Make it look dangerous!" "Take it again, Bernard!" "Besides, my client doesn't have as much strength as this woman... who's used to physical labor." "She looks well-fed." "Pull!" "It's odd how things occur." "I was sitting here, like now, staring into my coffee... when suddenly without warning... everything changed." "I kept staring at my coffee because I had nothing else to do, nothing more to be done." "Nothing meant anything." "The world lost all meaning." "I don't know how long I sat here, motionless." "I only remember... that suddenly..." "I began to cry." "I had no real reason to cry." "At least, it was a relief." "I at least felt something!" ""Darling, I'll come for you at 8.00." "Love... "" "And Hélène?" "What about Hélène?" "What did she say?" "Didn't she help you?" "She was in Rome." "I didn't even tell her about it." "Women aren't much good at times like that." "And now?" "Now what?" "What does she say?" "She doesn't know." "She's still in Rome... and for quite a while, I guess." "Nobody knows what's going on 'cause nobody wants things to happen." "We only know what we want to happen... and that's how it does." "In '17, Lenin didn't say..." ""We'll have a revolution 'cause we want one. "" "He said, "The time's ripe for one and..." ""it's inevitable!"" "They had one because they had to... and it was inevitable only because they wanted it." "Each time something occurs, it's for the worst." "That's why... nobody dares stir up the future." "You'd have to be a madman... to risk causing a new 1919, a new 1914 or a new 1937." "So nothing'll ever happen?" "It will!" "'Cause there are always madmen... and assholes who'll follow them while wisemen do nothing." "I know where my problem lies." "Ya can't flip out without asking why ya do." "You're right." "Life's not just pleasure." "That's exactly my problem." "Pleasure and life!" "So far, I've enjoyed life too much and not worked enough." "But work is all that matters!" " Talent means nothing." " Obsession." "Everyone has it." "But very few people have tenacity and perseverance." "The obsession!" "Right!" "The obsession!" "Work is a fully assumed obsession, untiringly fulfilled." "A fulfilled, accepted obsession, meaning work... is what distinguishes the great from the others." "It's where the weak stop and the strong begin." "The rest is only a question of time." "Since I've already wasted enough time, I'm going... to start working!" "Bravo!" "On what?" "On what?" "A good question!" "But not as important as it sounds." "Any great book is built on nothing but itself." "Its base is its summit." "Its start is its end." "Do you think For years I arose early would be a memorable line... if it wasn't the beginning... of 3,000 pages that end with in Time?" "It's brilliant!" "That's why your question's a good one... but not essential." "I could choose just any subject... because what will make it a great book is... the years I'll pile into it." "I could say that you... yes, you, you minute character... full of goodwill..." "I've decreed my book'll begin with..." "Today, I talked to Paul." "What do you say?" "I say you say you'll do it but will you?" "Of course, I could do it!" "I'll do it!" "Wait..." "I went from the conditional to the future tense." "I could do it?" "I will do it!" "Hélène!" "Hélène!" "Why'd you leave me?" "What?" "This is no time for that." "Wait outside." "I'll soon be finished." "Hélène..." "Why'd you leave me?" "I don't know." "That question'll get us nowhere." "I'm not asking much of you." "Till now, I've never tripped you up or bugged you." "So why start now?" "I need to know why you left!" "I left!" "What good will it do to know why?" "If I can stop asking why, it'll do me good." "Why?" "I'm sick of asking why with no hope for an answer." "I want to understand my life!" "That's it!" "What?" "The answer!" "You just said it." "My life!" "My life!" "You never wonder about OUR life." "Always YOUR life!" "You wanted an answer." "That's it!" "False!" "That's not it." "You grabbed the 1 st thing I said... to get rid of my question." "Because of this guy?" "Then why?" "I told you." "Because of you and your ego!" "My ego!" "It never bothered you much till you met this guy!" "Want me to say it's 'cause of him?" "OK, it's because of him!" "No, don't tell me that!" "Not that you left for a guy I only had to see once and not talk to... to know he's a schmuck!" "Sorry, but you must agree he looks like an idiot!" "I never saw such empty eyes, such a flat face... such bland, infatuated features!" "You saw him good!" "You agree, right?" "No, but if you say so..." "No, I don't just say so!" "I'm only trying to understand." "Is he here?" "You left him?" "Is he in Rome?" "No, he's working in Paris." "Then let's get back together, till you return to Paris." "Just to see!" "I've changed a lot, you know." "Shit, I love you!" "Do you know what that means?" "I know." "Those things happen." "Being in love?" "Loving when you're no longer loved." "What're you doing here?" "What do you want?" "To talk to you." "About what?" "I wanted to tell you..." "Look..." "Look, I'm dead tired." "I need sleep." "Let me sleep with you!" "One last time." "Just sleep!" "Please!" "OK..." "What's that?" "What?" "That!" "He likes it." "It excites him." "Excites him?" "It excites him!" "It excites him..." "It excites him..." "It excites him..." "Me too, I'd like to have a baby." "You could give me this one." "It's easier when it's ready-made." "Otherwise, it's a bit like roulette." "What's roulette?" "A game of chance." " Cleaned your room, Pierre?" " No." " Then do it!" " Why?" "A room should be neat." "Why?" "So you can find your things." "I can't when it's neat!" "Don't argue!" "Just do it!" "Put your slippers on!" "Why?" "So as not to catch cold." "It's stifling in here!" "Because you might hurt your foot." "If I hurt my foot, what's it to you?" "It'd mean we'd have to look after you!" "If I must wear 'em for you, just say so!" "Just say you want a spanking!" "It's for us and for you too!" "If you're hurt, it hurts us too." "Understand?" "You and us are the same thing!" "Can you clear the table?" "Why must I always do everything?" "Wrong!" "Last night I cleared it and did the dishes!" "You say it like it was a feat!" "A sacrifice!" "When you do something, we hear about it for weeks!" "But it's normal!" "It's the least you can do!" "You're right." "It'd be the least I could do... if I wanted to do it!" "But the least thing I do in this house is pure torture for me!" "Pure torture!" "I told you I hate arguments." "We're not really arguing, my love." "We're talking." "Hello!" "May I talk to you?" "Don't be afraid." "I won't try to make out." "I'm not afraid." "Are you alone here?" "Yes, my wife and children are in Paris." "I'm here alone too." "My husband and children are in London." "It seems like a place where people come to be alone." "No?" "So it seems." "I've been unhappy for such a long time." "And now?" "I'm happy." "Are you going to stay?" "I don't know." "What'll happen to the children?" "For now, I'm thinking only of myself." "For too long, I thought only of them." "Then comes a time when all you can do is run... to save your hide or your soul." "It's the same thing." "In any case, I don't see what good I'd be to them with no soul." "We'll need a babysitter Thursday night." "Jean's invited us to dinner." "With whom?" "Clara, Christian, a guy we don't know..." "Marcus and Ulrika." " I'll babysit." " Why?" " I don't feel like going." " Why?" " Ulrika." " What do you have against her?" "Nothing special." "I just don't care for her, that's all." "You could still come and not talk with her." "I'd rather stay home." "But you go!" "Don't mind about me." "Come on!" "Here, Jacques, pour!" "You should stop smoking!" "You're my baby!" "You could sleep here, Paul." "Do you want to talk more?" "Do you want me to stay?" "Yes." "It's all I've thought about since the last time." "Especially talking to you." "It's simple and odd." "I'm like convalescing and only you can help me get completely well." "But we won't make love." "We'll see how things are for us afterwards... after our dreams..." "in the morning, OK?" "I love you." "You mustn't be angry with me." "Your son wants you on the phone." "Coming!" "I said you slept on the sofa." "OK!" "I was tired and fell asleep on the sofa." "What happened?" "You could've called." "We were worried!" "I said I was tired and fell asleep on the sofa." "Pierre wants to talk to you." "Yes, son." "Why didn't you come home last night?" "Because... it was very late... and I was tired." "So I... slept at my friend's place." "But..." "Is it anything serious?" "It's serious?" "I wanted to talk to you this morning." "Want some coffee?" "Thanks." "Me too!" "Some coffee!" "I know why you don't want to live with me." "You don't want me to leave my kids." "They're your responsibility, not mine." "I had a letter from my sister Ruth." "She knows about us." "Here's what it says." "You should take Paul." "There's nothing worse than solitude." "One day you'll realize it." "You'll give up your conjuring tricks... your rather black magic and... all your schemes for avoiding any ties... in order to remain alone." "It's a drug you can tolerate for the moment." "You're 30." "You won't last long alone." "Your work already makes you lonely enough." "I adore Ruth." "She's right." "But for me, a guy is someone who hurls cruel words in my face... like slinging stones at the window of someone who's asleep." "If they're not cruel words, they're heavy words of love." "I'm the one who's asleep." "I'm the one who's asleep!" "I'm too afraid now to live with a man." "I don't love you." "I know." "You're my baby!" "It worries me... that we can change overnight, like a weather vane, no?" "No, not like a weather vane because... we know the wind makes it change." "But as for us..." "It scared me... really scared me when I fell for Kalif." "Kalif?" "Oh, yeah..." "Kalif..." "Yes, Kalif!" "What scared you?" "Being able... to hear, as you say, someone so different from you." "To become a stranger to what I once was... the one who loved you and gave you 2 kids." "Yes, it must be odd." "Isn't it the same for you?" "No, not really." "Yes." "Do you think the kids are the same?" "The same?" "The same as us!" "Able to change overnight... and become strangers." "Why do you ask that?" "Why?" "Because they're our kids!" "Our kids..." "Don't they count?" "Sure, they do!" "But why mention them?" "What're you up to?" "Why aren't you asleep?" "I was but I woke up." "Why aren't you asleep?" "Because we're talking." "See?" " What about?" " You." "Me?" "We said you're the nicest boy alive, especially when you sleep!" "But not when I'm awake?" "I mean when you're asleep when kids should be asleep!" "You said that?" "Yes!" "Almost!" "Now everyone's going to bed!" "Excuse me." "I want to say I really like what you do!" "That's nice." "Sit down." "Like some coffee?" "Yes." "Want to have lunch with me?" "OK." "I have to make a phone call." "Where's the phone, please?" "It's OK." "Shall we go?" "I've had it!" "3 hours and the kid won't go to sleep!" "Mom's crying, upstairs." "Tell her to come down." "I did!" "Tell her I'm sorry." "Do you love her?" "Yes, tell her so." "I'm fed up!" "Moms should take care of babies, not dads." "Know what my dad did, one day?" "He got fed up and left my mom with us, alone." "Don't talk that way." "I'd tell only one woman what I daren't say to you." "I've said nothing yet." "Want me to say it?" "Not yet." "Not yet?" "You're right." "2 men are heading for their destiny." "Cars have always inspired me." "Cars and trains always do." "I understood why only a short time ago." "Know why?" "It's sort of hard to explain." "It's not due to the movement or the change but... on the contrary, due to the limitations." "I realized I'm subconsciously assured, reassured... when the situation I'm in is limited by time." "I can then give free rein to my imagination." "Do you see?" "Bizarre, eh?" "You see?" "No." "I don't know why." "So my imagination can take me... where I'm afraid to go." "You see?" "Yes and no." "Right to the source... to the deep fault... the abyss... the primal scene, the secret, the taboo... that gives my work its strength and on which it's built." "Not bad, eh?" "Pretty sneaky!" "But I don't travel enough." "So get a driver's license!" "No." "If I drove I'd no longer be able to think." "Then hire a chauffeur!" "I intend to once I get the Nobel." "I'd call my books A Chauffeur's Memories Volume 1, 2..." "Brilliant!" "I don't know..." "I've thought a lot lately." "I mentioned destiny earlier." "I've decided I don't have mine any longer." "That took me a helluva lot of courage." "Till now, I thought I had a destiny... which limited my responsibility." "Once I'd have thought going to Rome with Paul was my destiny." "Today I know that's not true." "Rome's not our destiny." "It's our destination." "We could even say... the whole western world suffers from a lack of destiny... a legacy from the Greeks that the Christian Church has taken up." "We wander around." "Men choose destinations to calm their lack of destiny." "That's why our lives are duller and duller." "Just notice how... we say that only celebrities have destinies..." "Tragic ones." "See?" "A star!" "Love your dad?" "I hated him." "My greatest joy would've been to bash his face in." "Did you ever bash it in?" "Bash it in... metaphorically speaking." "Talk straight with him." "Tell him the kind of dad he'd been." "He'd never known." "If he had, he'd have been different." "But it was too late." "I was no longer his son." "That's wrong." "We always remain sons." "That's why I still regret it." "Maybe it was too late to do him any good... but not too late to do me some good." "I wasn't egocentric enough or I feared hurting him." "Why'd you ask me that?" "Because I have a son." "Aren't you a good father?" "Besides, he owed me money." "And for 10 years, the bastard!" "I had few chances of getting it back and didn't want to ruin them." "He paid you back?" "Yes, and how!" "10 years later." "It was half of what I'd loaned him." "Know what?" "When the slob died... he had 60,000 francs in the bank and owed all his friends money... even to his 30-year-old mistress who was dead broke." "How old was he?" "About 75." "You got it back?" "No, my sister did." "He'd promised to pay me but... she managed to get it." "In a way she's like him." "Your dad stayed?" "Yes." "Huh?" "My dad..." "Did he stay?" "To the end, unfortunately!" "I expected him to walk out... and screw Mom but I wore out and left first." "Mine left." "Mine left!" "When'd he leave?" " Early on." " So?" "We're pals." "I even ask him for advice." "He's like a father." "Yes, I don't need a 2nd one." "And your mother?" "I don't see her often." "See how unfair life is?" "We shouldn't be dads too early but save it for later." "Besides, now they take off... let Mom do the work and come back later for the profits." "What a lousy thing to say!" "'Cause it's true?" "Think you'd be his son if he hadn't walked out?" "I don't know." "I ran off but..." "What?" "That stifled kid hasn't hit ya yet?" "Right in the neck!" "True, you're a bit young yet but anyway we never know!" "Sir!" "Cut your motor, please." "Wake your friend?" "I'd like to see him when he's not asleep." " He's not the same?" " No." "His eyes..." "Marcus!" "OK!" "Italy's something else!" "You see a difference?" "I feel it deep inside me." "Who said travel doesn't change us?" " Baudelaire." " He was wrong." "We don't live just inside us." "We're here on earth!" "Know the Madonna of Monterchi?" "We should go see it." "It's nearby, at Arezzo." " We're going to Rome!" " Like you say!" "OK!" "To Roma!" "To live and die there... as Musset said about Venice." "It's almost the same!" "I just arrived!" "You're not coming up?" "Sure!" "If you want me to." "Then come!" "You're sure?" "Yes, I'm sure." "OK, I'll be right there." "Yes, come!" "I'm coming!" "OK?" "OK..." "I'm going back to Paris later." "I'm going in." "Coming with me?" "I'd rather not." "You'll wait for me?" "OK!" "What'd you do there?" "Nothing." "Just looked!" "Adultery's not nice." "That's not what we're going to commit." "Mind if I say things that don't concern you?" "No, but they do if you want to say them to me." "Long ago I loved a woman." "Papa, what'll we do Saturday?" "Saturday?" "Today's Wednesday and we've done nothing." "Once we do something today, we'll discuss Saturday." "You don't know?" "No, I don't know." "I really don't." "Some time ago I had an accident." "A car ran me down." "Look!" "I still can't sit on my heels." "I noticed earlier in the street that... you limped a bit." "I thought you'd twisted or sprained your ankle." "I especially limp when it's damp." "The car ran all over me." "I didn't see a thing." "It was dark." "I was walking along an avenue." "I expected the car." "They drive very fast in that direction." "I did it 'cause a guy didn't love me and had left me." "A bath..." "I don't like hotel rooms." "I'll fix this one up like my own room." "When I caress you, it's like making spirals with a shell... washed up, you know... on the sand by the sea." "Children caress them, gather them." "Other women, I masturbated them." "Grimly and hygienically..." "I masturbated them." "Shit!" "I'm having my period!" "I never before thought that blood was so beautiful." "Only love..." "Not a film..." "Not life without you..." "Not the days of horror I spend alone..." "The beauty of your eyes." "Seeing your kids now?" "The day after tomorrow." "Meet me later?" "I have to go look at a room." "We can't spend all your money... on hotel rooms." " Can I come along?" " If you want to." "Where'll I meet you?" "On the rue de Rivoli... at noon in front of the Châtelet." "OK." " Love me?" " Yes, I love you." "Prove it!" "I could give you a child." "I don't want one." "I just wanted a kiss." "I'll give you one." " I'll give you one!" " Ciao!" "Subtitles:" "Jaib Warner" "Subtitling Titra Film Paris"