Le Parc

If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big sur­prise… And if not the woods, your local park will cer­tain­ly suf­fice. Espe­cial­ly one that has a few trees and a nice stretch of shad­ed canopy. In Damien Manivel’s wrong-foot­ing French minia­ture, Le Parc, a young gal and a young guy decide that the park makes for per­fect neu­tral ground when it comes to the loca­tion of a ten­ta­tive first date.

The term ​“Lynchi­an” seems like one of the most well-worn, overused and pos­si­bly even mis­used crit­i­cal epi­thets of the mod­ern age, but the term def­i­nite­ly applies here. Specif­i­cal­ly in its pre­sen­ta­tion of an earth­ly idyll which is shat­tered by an encroach­ing dread that lurks just behind the bush­es. The film encap­su­lates a stark light/​dark con­trast in the same way that Lynch does at the begin­ning of Blue Vel­vet, when his cam­era dives into the plush green lawn to present a teem­ing alien empire underfoot.

Maniv­el cap­tures the com­plete banal­i­ty of a nerve-wrack­ing first meet­ing where nei­ther par­ty has any­thing to say. The dia­logue com­pris­es of ran­dom splut­ters and admis­sions. The pair speak words only as a way to punc­ture the awk­ward silence. They toss out rhetor­i­cal mis­sives like life rings, hop­ing in earnest to drag the oth­er towards them, just a frac­tion clos­er. Pet­ting comes into play because there’s noth­ing else left to do. As dra­ma, it’s not what you’d describe as blis­ter­ing­ly excit­ing, but there’s an hon­est human­i­ty to this arm’s‑length tan­go in a pub­lic space.

Then, just as you think that the film is set­tling as a stan­dard-issue rela­tion­ship dra­ma (with some feath­erlight com­ic notes), dark­ness envelops the pro­ceed­ings and mat­ters take a sur­pris­ing diver­sion into the sur­re­al. To say any more would be to ruin a macabre treat, but real­i­ty segues into what might be referred to as goth­ic hor­ror with added fiery, racial­ly-infused subtext.

This won’t be to all tastes, as it does feel a lit­tle like an aca­d­e­m­ic exer­cise in extreme tonal manip­u­la­tion, but Maniv­el demon­strates a sen­si­tiv­i­ty towards peo­ple and places that you just can’t fake. So we’ll be look­ing out for what­ev­er he has to offer next.