Changing Times (film)

Changing Times (Les temps qui changent)
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	André Téchiné
Produced by	Paulo Branco
Written by	André Téchiné Laurent Guyot Pascal Bonitzer
Starring	Gérard Depardieu Catherine Deneuve Gilbert Melki Malik Zidi Lubna Azabal
Music by	Juliette Garrigues
Cinematography	Julien Hirsch
Editing by	Martine Giordano
Distributed by	Koch-Lorber Films (U.S.)
Release date(s)	8 December 2004 (France) 14 July 2006 (USA)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	France
Language	French Arabic
Budget	5.310.000 €
Box office	4,099,305

Changing Times (Les temps qui changent) is a 2004 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu. The film follows a construction engineer who goes to Morocco to oversee a new project and catch up with the woman he loved 30 years ago.

Plot

Antoine, a successful French civil engineer, travels to Tangiers to supervise the construction of buildings for a large media center. His real motivation, however, is to seek out his first love from thirty years before, Cécile. Having discovered that Cécile lives in Tangiers, he begins anonymously sending her roses every day at the radio station where she hosts a French-Arabic program, but she is uninterested in her secret admirer. Cécile, who married a man shortly after ending her relationship with Antoine, only to divorce later, is currently married to a younger man, Nathan, a Moroccan Jewish physician.

Antoine has literally counted the days (31 years, 8 months, and 20 days) since he last saw Cécile and has spent years tracking her down. He has come to Morocco expressly to make her fall back in love with him. He has never married and in his obsession to win Cécile’s heart he recruits the help of Nabila, his Moroccan assistant, to investigate the possibility of using witchcraft. Antoine and Cécile eventually cross paths in a supermarket when Antoine walks into a plate glass window, injuring his nose, and Nathan, who is with Cécile, rushes over to administer first aid.

Around the time Antoine arrives in Tangier, Cécile and Nathan’s son, Sami, who lives in Paris, arrives for a visit with his live-in girlfriend, Nadia, and Saïd, her 9-year-old son by another man. Sami often leaves them alone in order to visit with his Moroccan boyfriend Bilal, who briefly lived in Paris and is now looking after a villa for its absents owners. Bilal more or less accepts Sami’s ambivalence and they restart their affair. Nadia, meanwhile, hopes to reconnect with her identical twin sister, Aïcha, a conservative observant Muslim who works in a McDonald’s, but Aicha is reluctant to see her and after many efforts Nadia manages only a brief glimpse at her sister from afar. When Nadia's addiction to prescriptions pills is exposed by Nathan, Sami decides that is time to return to Paris.

Cécile, who is cold and formal, has buried her youthful dreams, coping with life in a state of mild exasperation. Her marriage is less than blissful. Nathan, whose career has stalled, has had several affairs. Eventually Cécile, encouraged by Rachel, a friend and coworker, accepts Antoine's advances, initially proposing a brief fling, rather than his preference for them to grow old together. They make love and Antoine is closer to reaching his goal just when he was losing all hope. However, shortly thereafter, Antoine is involved in a serious accident, trapped in a collapse at the construction site where he works and is hospitalized with a coma. Cécile visits him constantly at the hospital.

Cécile and Nathan separate. He moves to Casablanca accepting a new job. It is suggested that he has started a relationship with Aïcha. Bilal is ambivalent about accepting Samis’s offer to visit him in Paris. Months later during one of Cécile’s hospital visits, Antoine wakes up from his coma, and their hands join.

Cast

• Catherine Deneuve as Cécile
• Gérard Depardieu as Antoine
• Gilbert Melki as Nathan
• Malik Zidi as Sami
• Lubna Azabal as Nadia/Aïcha
• Nadem Rachati as Bilal
• Tanya Lopert as Rachel
• Nabila Baraka as Nabila
• Idir Elomri as Saïd

Release

Though the film's initial release was in December 2004, its regular release in the United States was not until mid-July 2006, when it opened at the Paris Theatre in Manhattan. The film was released on DVD in the United States on 3 October 2006.

Accolades

• Berlin Film Festival (Germany)
  • Nominated: Golden Berlin Bear (André Téchiné)

• César Awards (France)
  • Nominated: Most Promising Actor (Malik Zidi)

• Satellite Awards (USA)
  • Nominated: Best Motion Picture – Foreign Language
  • Nominated: Best Overall DVD
  • Nominated: Best Screenplay – Original (Pascal Bonitzer, Laurent Guyot and André Téchiné)

Bibliography

• Marshall, Bill, André Téchiné, Manchester University Press, 2007, ISBN 0719058317

External links

• Changing Times at the Internet Movie Database
• Holden, Stephen. (2006, July 14). A Decades-Long Love, Reunited But Unrequited. The New York Times, p. B8