Patric Chiha's Domaine begins with a seductive and cerebral sequence that unfolds with lovely, unstrained subtlety, from the first dim glimpses of a strawberry-red dress to a woozy bout of inebriated dancing between friends. In between, the group, led by Nadia (the incomparable Beatrice Dalle), muses on about mathematics, control, sexuality, and philosophy, but temptation is what is conveyed by Chiha's camera as it passes over the faces of the group. Pheromones drift in between all participants, but the palpitations of temptation in Nadia's nephew, Pierre (Isaie Sultan), are felt strongest. Like Pierre, we are enamored by Nadia's intellect and ability to be bound to nothing but her ferocious will and, yes, the bottle.
The sequence is so engaging on several levels that the ensuing mediocrity comes as a particularly jarring disappointment, overindulging in long diatribes and discussions of beauty, love, and existential notions with a spare, faux-elegant style. Chiha's focus and empathy remains with Pierre, who goes a long way to realize the seismic psychological faults in his beloved aunt, but his camera continuously swoons for Nadia. Those who love her are given spotlights to croon to her; dance floor limbs and figures fold and merge in rapturous devotion to her very being; nature itself seems to blush at her praise.
Dalle holds the screen so simply and so voraciously, drawing us in with little more than a upward flitter of her eyelashes and a glance at the gap in her front teeth, that it's hard to blame Pierre for sticking with her even as she descends into fatalism. Still, the interplay between Pierre's burgeoning discovery and embracing of his homosexuality and Dalle's withering last weeks feels intermittently unconvincing and thoroughly unbalanced. The observational tone begins to grow lethargic, and the film itself climaxes with a dull passage involving Nadia's final attempts at sobriety.Things perk up at the sight of Fabrice (Manuel Marmier), Pierre's tram-riding lover, and Samir (Alain Libolt), Nadia's "dangerous" acquaintance who attempts to seduce Pierre. They stir up Nadia and Pierre enough to awaken a sense of varied emotions in the central pair, but Chiha is quick to return to the rocky, predictable relationship between the two, which grows stale with narrative repetition and a beguiling lack of active repetition. The tattered canopy of sexual insinuation that hangs over the film is at once commendable in its refusal of exposition and tiresome in its knowing, borderline-pretentious sense of withholding.
Written by the director and shot admirably by Pascal Poucet, Domaine suggests nothing so much as a Catherine Breillat joint in embryo. Dalle's very visage suggests bottomless caverns of sensual exploration, but her director doesn't match her in his aesthetic decisiveness. She prowls on the edges of the film, but never gets to truly bare her fangs or submerge totally into her character's despondency. You'd never imagine a film heralded by John Waters would be so unwilling to let the queen of sexual ferocity wet her lips -- whether with saliva, blood, or any other bodily fluid.
