RETURN OF THE LACEMAKER

I recall a period in my teens where it seems to me that every Friday or Saturday night there was a Foreign Movie on BBC2. (Probably it was just the occasional short season but hey, this is my memory and you can butt out with your specifics). My parents liked that kind of stuff and I would watch all I could, my mind and eyes opening with the new worlds and the new styles of cinema I saw.

One film that left a deep mark on my 16 year-old soul (not counting any re-incarnations, you understand) was The Lacemaker, a French story of the love affair between Pomme, a very quiet 19 year-old girl, and an intellectual but loving student. On one level it's very simple: they meet, they live together, there are problems, they split up. But behind the simplicity is a finely observed study of the quest for love and acceptance that is ultimately profoundly haunting: above all, because the girl, in her own quiet way, cannot recover from the loss. Indeed, so profound was its effect that I sat down and wrote a song about the story (which, thankfully no other living soul has ever heard).

I've often wanted to see it again, but it never crossed my path until tonight. Thanks to the French Embassy I had a free ticket to see the movie at the Filmoteca Nacional (National Film Theatre) with the star herself in attendance: the amazing Isabelle Huppert. She discreetly managed to get almost to the front of the cinema before we noticed and started applauding. She climbed onto the stage looking very good for 52, but so tiny and slight that a cough might floor her. She proceeded to talk so excitedly that the translator had to eventually grab her arm to get her to allow him to do his job.

And then the curtains opened and a freckly 30 years younger version appeared. I'd dragged a couple of friends along and began to doubt whether that was wise. The 70s styles were hilarious and I wondered if the whole thing was just the dated reminiscence of an adolescent. But then it began to weave its spell on me again. I could see just how powerfully it would have affected the teenage virgin me whose hormones and emotions had no idea what to do with themselves. And it was having the same effect again on me and my companions.

Now, considering that my business is drama, I have a shocking inability to remember the details of movies. Most of those times when people ask "Don't you remember that wonderful bit where..." I can usually simplify the conversation with a direct and sadly honest "No". So I was amazed to find that the final ten minutes of the film were etched upon my mind as if I had just seen them the day before. Isabelle Huppert deserved all the awards she won, just for her final long look at the camera.

Like all good art it makes you reflect on yourself and your own life. I saw myself as that 16 year-old again. I thought about my son who is now that age and yet has already lived emotional experiences beyond those in the film. And I thought about A, also in Paris, and her very clear love for me, not unlike that of Pomme in the film. She enjoys being with me as I am, rather than with the expectation that I must be or become something else. And here I am, turning my back on that. Mind you, A could easily give that skinny French lad a run for his money in the intellectual stakes. But I felt her fragility as I watched the story and I find myself thinking again that perhaps staying away is kinder than later breaking such a young heart (even if the body is older).

Leaving the cinema, I began to hear my Lacemaker song in my head. The melody was crystal clear, but the lyrics were hazy. However, the last line came through to me: "Her silence soft like holes in the lace". Sometimes it's the space between the threads/ the busyness/ the noise/ the words that creates the beauty. And I realised my soul was quite old enough back then to understand what it needed to learn.