Changing Times (film)
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| Changing Times (Les temps qui changent) |
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| 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) | July 14, 2006 (U.S.) |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Language | French Arabic |
| IMDb profile | |
Changing Times (Les temps qui changent) is a 2004 Morocco-set drama featuring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu and directed by André Téchiné.
Depardieu plays a construction engineer, Antoine, who goes to Morocco to oversee a new project and catch up with the woman he loved 30 years ago, played by Catherine Deneuve.
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[edit] Plot
Antoine (Depardieu), a successful civil engineer, has literally counted the time (31 years 8 months 20 days) since he last saw Cécile (Deneuve). He has spent years tracking down his first and only great love and even investigates the possibility of using witchcraft to make her fall back in love with him.
Cécile, on the other hand, was married to and divorced from one man, and has currently been less than blissfully married for over 20 years to a much younger man, Nathan, a Moroccan-born physician with whom she lives in Tangiers. Antoine arrives to break ground for a large media center. Having discovered that Cécile lives in Tangiers, he begins anonymously sending her roses everyday at the radio station where she hosts a French-Arabic program.
Antoine and Cécile eventually meet in a Tangiers supermarket, where Antoine has followed Cécille and her husband. Antoine walks into a plate glass wall, injuring his nose, and Nathan rushes over to administer first aid.
Cécile wants nothing to do with Antoine, telling him their love is in the past and she has moved on to a complicated life as a wife, mother, and broadcaster.
Meanwhile, Nathan and Cécile's bisexual son Sami is visiting from Paris, accompanied by his live-in girlfriend Nadia and her 9-year-old son Said. Nadia hopes to reconnect with her twin sister Aica, a man-hating observant Muslim who works in a Tangiers McDonald's. Nadia has an addiction to tranquilizers, and Sami often leaves her alone to engage in trysts with his Moroccan boyfriend Bilal.
Cécile decides to have a fling with Antoine, perhaps to prove to him that their love is over, or perhaps to convice herself of the same.
Nathan returns to Morocco to accept a job offer, and shortly thereafter Antoine suffers a serious accident and is hospitalized in a comatose state. Cécile is a constant visitor at the hospital. At the end of the film, Antoine has a flashback of his accident and suddenly opens his eyes and returns to a vague consciousness. Cécile is by his bedside and is visually moved that he has come back to life.
[edit] Notes
Dialogue is in French and Arabic, with English subtitles in the United States.
Though the film's initial release was in December 2004, its regular release in the U.S. wasn't until mid-July 2006, when it opened at the Paris Theatre in Manhattan.
[edit] Quotes
Bilal (addressing Sami): "You're too indecisive, but I guess that's normal. You're half Moroccan, half French, half man, half woman. It must be difficult knowing who you are."
[edit] Cast
- Catherine Deneuve — Cécile
- Gérard Depardieu — Antoine
- Gilbert Melki — Nathan
- Malik Zidi — Sami
- Lubna Azabal — Nadia/Aicha
- Nadem Rachati — Bilal
- Tanya Lopert — Rachel
