Most recently known for her roles in Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day and The Intruder as, respectively, a feral cannibal and the Queen of the Northern Hemisphere (how's that for range?), Béatrice Dalle can come off as such a crazy/sexy/cool presence (those eyes! That gap!) that one can easily forget the actress at work beneath the defiantly carnal exterior. Patric Chiha sees both, and uses them to quietly heartrending effect in Domaine, a film shaped by the divide between appearance and reality—or, more to the point, perceived order and underlying chaos.

This recognition of emotional disarray beneath chic exteriors occurs slowly within Domaine, metered out in Chiha's pensive images of fog-shrouded clubs and autumnal city parks under cloudy skies. When we first lay eyes on Nadia (Dalle), she's refilling the champagne glasses of her academic and art-world friends as they lounge around a beach bonfire. Worldly and elegant, Nadia proves a logical fairy godmother for Pierre (Isaïe Sultan), her gay 17-year-old nephew, who sits on the edge of the group but gazes on with hungry eyes. There's a hint of Olivier Assayas in this scene (something to do with how attuned Chiha is to the emotional and conversational cross-currents of his ever-so-bohemian collective) and it elegantly sets up the casually rebellious world that so fervently draws Pierre to Nadia. Domaine subtly toys with our expectations throughout its opening sequences, playing upon memories of other films that cast aging nonconformists as hip mentors to their doe-eyed queer charges. Their frequent walks through a Boudreaux park establish an unforced rapport between Nadia and Pierre, while Pierre's fashion consultations with Nadia and trips to cafes and gay clubs underline her "cool aunt" status. Though Chiha's camera remains studiously objective, we can't help but see Nadia through Pierre's star-struck eyes, and Dalle sashays through these scenes with stiletto-clicking authority and a touch of world-weary grace. Continue Reading »