The Madame Clos of this sometimes charming documentary from Australian filmmaker Jane Oehr is a diminutive woman who enjoys a walk, a cup of tea, traditional sweets and a good long chat. When we first meet her she’s pushing 100 years; still there’s a breathless, endless energy about her that’s beguiling. She lays claim to a loss of memory, and there’s a worrying tilt in her gait, but it doesn’t seem to stress her too much, or slow her down, for that matter.
Still, while it might sound like it, Oehr’s quiet and small film is not quite a sop to a classic movie myth"¦ that of the 'colourful and wise Old Lady’. For Oehr, Madame Clos is a precious soul and something of a symbol, a figure, who, the filmmaker says, represents a way of life that’s almost gone at this point in the 21st century.
Clos is a native of a tiny village located in the South West of France, where the film was shot by Oehr, herself. It’s the kind of place one often see’s immortalised in postcards. Its small dwellings crowd the narrow, stoned streets which seem barely wide enough to offer carriage for motor cars. There aren’t any modern buildings on show here and the population seems to consist entirely of children and adults of retiring age. No matter what time of day there’s a mist in the air that softens the light; it gives the film a beautiful 'look’ like that of an old photo that’s beginning to fade from age and the ravages of time.
No matter what ambitions Oehr has, Madame Clos appears as an unlikely character for a documentary. She is not a yarn spinner, jokester or given over to delivering on cue, clever bon mots. But she is always, well, interesting. She’s never predictable, phony or pretentious.
Shot in observational style, in often very long takes, Oehr, clearly enchanted by her friend and subject, seems to want us to spend time with Madame Clos, so we can somehow get a sense of the woman’s mystique. So, we watch Madame Clos prepare a meal or sip a cup of tea or take a bite from a biscuit. She’s never in a hurry and if there’s a problem or an unhappy thought, it gets chased away with a smile. Oehr has said that for her the film is in part a movie about the aging process. That seems a fine ambition, but, in the end I’m not at all certain that’s what the film delivers.
Oehr, inspired by Godard and others, says she is somewhat enamoured of a '60s poetic-essay type of doco storytelling. Here, Oehr becomes very interested in the image of Madame Clos sitting at her window, set at street level, where she watches the world of the village go by. She knows everyone and everyone knows her.
Indeed, Tea with Madame Clos is full of studied imagery, rhyming cuts and a diary-like narration from Oehr. In fact, the film is structured as a 'memory’ piece – not Madame Clos’ memory but the filmmaker’s, as she shot it on a series of visits to France over a four-year period.
It’s a movie that is at once optimistic and melancholy; it asks how will I face the aging process? As I see friends, family and the world change around me, how will I cope? This is a moving film simply because Oehr was clearly changed by her encounter with Madame Clos, in the same way that a chance meeting or a close encounter with a stranger can lead us to a moment of emotional and spiritual clarity.
It’s often said of documentaries that there is another 'phantom’ film running in parallel to the one we actually get to see in the final cut. Watching this tender, but somewhat tentative film I wonder just how 'close’ this film got to Madame Clos, and I mean that in a generous way, because it’s a film I’d really like to see.
