Confusion of Genders

Confusion of Genders
(2003)

Cast and Credits
Starring:
Pascal Greggory, Vincent Martinez, Nathalie Richard,
Cyrille Thouvenin, Julie Gayet, Alain Bashung

Directed by: Ila Duran Cohen
Produced by: Didier Boujard, Ilan Duran Cohen
















A complex story of lawyers in love. Alain is an indecisive bisexual lawyer in his 40s, torn between a plethora of male lovers, including the ardent, mercurial Christophe, and his fiancee and legal colleague, Laurence. Alain's life is further complicated by a thorny relationship with Marc, whom he's defending in court, and who persuades Alain to be his emissary to girlfriend Babette.
Alain (Pascal Greggory) is involved with Laurence (Nathalie Richard), who is his boss at a law firm. They reluctantly agree to settle down as partners—especially after she discovers she is pregnant. However, the couple constantly snaps at each other, and their love is more like war.

One obvious barrier to the union is the yummy Christophe (Cyrille Thouvenin), who Alain seriously fancies and also happens to be the much younger brother of an ex-girlfriend. Although he acknowledges that their relationship has no future, Alain is frequently intimate with Christophe, who kisses him ardently whenever they are together.

Adding to this confusion is a subplot involving a criminal Alain is defending named Marc (Vincent Martinez). Depressed at the thought of possibly never seeing his girlfriend Babette (Julie Gayet) again, Marc asks Alain to bring her to him in jail. As compensation for this, Marc says he will fuck Alain, who is undeniably attracted to the sexy prisoner. Of course, Alain falls for Babette in the process, causing further complications.

Although each of the four couples in the film are in different stages of their relationships, the film depicts the power struggles that consumes their characters. While this makes for compelling viewing as Alain and Laurence fight, or Alain and Christophe fuck, Confusion of Genders is weakest when it depicts Alain’s courtship with Babette. The dynamic between these two characters is the most unbelievable—perhaps because it lacks real passion.

Wisely, writer-director Ilan Duran Cohen uses Babette to show how men fall under a woman’s spell, and a scene in which she visits the lovesick Marc in prison is particularly intense. As Marc’s desire for Babette is too fervid, Alain literally comes between them as the couple embrace, forming a bisexual trio. It is one of the more erotic moments in a film full of sexy scenes.

Nevertheless, Confusion of Genders is less about sex than it is about love. Alain’s inability to choose whom he should be with is more frustrating for the characters than it is for the viewer. Audiences will enjoy watching Alain jump into bed with everyone he meets. In fact, this concept of a revolving bed is best illustrated in the film’s opening segment, a back and forth conversation between Alain and his various male and female lovers.

Whereas Cohen may be satirizing a sexually compulsive man by presenting all of his foibles—“You’re married, you’re not. You’re gay, you’re not” one character says to Alain—at the same time, the film’s shrewd ending leaves the subject open to debate. In essence, Alain may be a man who can’t decide what he wants, but he is also one who refuses to let other people tell him.

In the lead role, the handsome Greggory gives a terrific performance, full of feeling, and he expresses his character’s emotions, ranging from pleasure to indecision, beautifully. Greggory’s performance energizes this past-paced film—things sag a bit during the few moments he is not on screen—and he has an excellent rapport with his various co-stars.

Confusion of Genders may be risqué and cynical, but it is also dead on accurate about relationships.

Pascal Greggory
Biography of Pascal Greggory
Was born in Paris on September 8, 1954, of a directing father of a company of road signs. As of the age of 7 or 8 years, of its own consent, it knows that he will be an actor and takes courses of theatre. Teenager, it occurs as soprano solo in the choruses of the Opera of Paris and, a little later, attends the courses Périmony and Florent, to integrate, like non-registered student, the National Academy of Dramatic art (classes of Marcel Bluwal and Antoine Vitez), where there remain two years.

Categorized “young first romantic”, it begins its professional career into 1974 at the sides from Annie Girardot, at the same time with the theatre (Mrs Marguerite) and the cinema (Doctor Francoise Gailland (1975), and finds finally its first role important thanks to Andre Techine who imposes it, counters the opinion of the producers, in the character of Barnwell on the Brontë sisters. In 1983, it is the revelation with Rohmer, which offers to him the principal role of Pauline to the beach (1982) that of Pierre, beautiful young man in marine shirt who teaches the board with veil with Pauline and fall in love with pulpy Marion. Scene worship when Pascal Greggory is made push back by Arielle Dombasle during the festival of the village.

A revelation, certainly, nevertheless the young actor sees himself thereafter catalogued “actor intello” and pains to find a second breath. Several films of author for public restricts take along it to meeting again with Rohmer (and Arielle) in 1992 in the Tree, the mayor and the media library (1992) Entre-temps, Pascal Greggory will have made a crucial meeting in the person of the Patrice Chéreau, who directs it on scene in particular in Hamlet (1990) of Shakespeare, and In the loneliness of the cotton fields (1996) of Bernard-Marie Koltès, part which will involve them for a round in the whole world. It is besides under the aegis of Chéreau that Greggory carries out its great cinematographic re-entry. Initially by incarnating the duke of Anjou in the Queen Margot (1993) then by holding the central role of Those which like to me will take to the train (1998) the actor has veilli, matured, its features grew hollow and it raises from now on a quasi-shaven cranium.

Sign times, from now on, the roles are connected without respite: Carnivorous saint Wolf and rebel in the found Time (1998) of Raoul Ruiz, muscular prisoner and violent one in Zonzon (1998) (nomination in César 99 in the category Better actor) duke of Alençon in Jeanne d' Arc (The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Ark) (1999) editor impassioned by a photographer in Fidelity (1999) one also finds it into large undecided in love in Confusion with the Kinds (2000) where, for the first time, it approaches a comic register. More recently, one been able to see it at the sides of Elsa Zylberstein in an Angel (2001) in film of action Wasps' nest (2001) and in the Life promised (2002) with Isabelle Huppert.