Original subtitles

Come and eat.

Your coffee's so awful.

- When did he go? - Half an hour ago.

He left his pipe.

Do you have a cold?

This house is so cold.

Did you sleep well?

- Will Michel be here for lunch? - No, he's delivering a baby.

- Have you finished with the butter? - Yes.

What are you doing here? Help me.

- Was the road icy? - Not very.

It's incredible.

It's like the Middle Ages. Squalid.

Men snorting and a woman giving birth in the same room.

They slept through my visit.

She showed me her baby.

She'd delivered it herself.

The place was so filthy.

- Where's Agn�s? - In the living-room.

- Coffee, Michel? - No. Never in the evening.

- How about you, Agn�s? - No, thanks.

Today's programme is called 'Stopping inflation'.

Or 'Social measures boost economy'.

The story of cassoulet.

Cassoulet through the ages.

We'll talk about the current social problems...

...which could lead to national strikes.

Generally their conclusions aren't pessimistic.

Despite continuing inflation and worrying unemployment...

You look drained.

- You have no energy. - I have.

Higher.

Again.

Higher.

Keep straight.

Tense your muscles.

Keep straight.

Again.

Shoulders back.

Arch your back.

You have no willpower.

Lower.

A bit more energy.

Lower.

You call that energetic?

In the end, youth is only what you define it as.

I've never felt so young.

So in tune with myself.

Michel has a mistress.

- How do you know? - I saw her.

She's a whore.

No, she's not a whore.

Well, you could say...

...she dresses like a whore.

But she has the grace...

...the sort of modesty...

...of very young whores.

To start with, she was just a girl he met in a bar.

Come on, my lord. Come to my table.

It's so cold outside and so warm inside.

Let me guide you, my lord. Make yourself at home.

Tell me you troubles and sit on this chair.

I know you, my lord. You've never seen me.

I'm just a girl on the edge, a shadow in the street.

Yet I brushed against you when you walked past.

You looked so proud. God had granted your wish.

Your silk scarf floated on your shoulder.

You had the best part. You looked like a king.

You walked triumphant arm in arm with a young girl.

She was so beautiful...

...it made me shiver.

Come on, my lord. You look like a child.

Let me guide you, my lord. Come to my kingdom.

I cure remorse and sing romance.

I sing about lords down on their luck.

Look at me, my lord. You've never seen me before.

But you're crying, my lord.

Who would ever have thought it?

What's up with you two?

I'm off to bed.

Let's not forget that the President

has to lead France and head a government...

France alone will remember her past.

France alone will remember her commitments.

France alone will remember...

France alone will remember...

Alone, alone, alone...

For fear of loneliness or some other mysterious reason...

...you married Michel.

But you've never been so alone.

Of course, there's your life together.

But there's something else...

...which, little by little, will eat away at you.

You think you're happy because you like being with a man.

But you can't argue that, when you examine your ego...

...most of what you had and what you were...

...has now gone.

You've settled into a sort of sexual comfort.

You think you're happy with Michel.

You really believe that.

But where's the Agn�s I knew?

The noble Agn�s, my Agn�s?

The supreme Agn�s, the infallible Agn�s?

Where are your books and records?

Do you remember the nights we listened to Lully, Corelli...

...and Monteverdi? Where are those happy times?

Those long nights when our conversations may have been silly...

...but we were in amazing communion.

You took refuge in physical communion.

A desperate refuge from loneliness.

In fact, you're tragically lonely as I am.

You wanted to run away...

...from loneliness.

But you ran away from the wonder that was you.

The B�ranger woman's pregnant again.

Guess what we're having at the Renault's?

- Chicken with cream. - And morels.

Close the shutters.

Come on, silly girl!

Good evening, ma'am. We've broken down. Is there a garage?

- Not around here. - Can I call?

No.

Come in. It's so cold.

Follow me.

- Sit down. - Thanks.

- Where have you come from? - Paris.

- Where are you going? - London.

London.

And you've got very cold?

You'd better stay here for the night.

And that cake!

They kept looking at my plate.

They're all bitches.

Disgusting whores.

Are you okay? Ad�la�de?

Michel is unfaithful to you.

Not again. What are you saying?

Nothing.

They're very funny.

The girl's ravishing.

- Michel, will you be home for lunch? - Maybe.

May I have some butter please?

Why yes, of course.

You English are a funny lot.

After the war, you make Churchill a national hero, then get rid of him.

Churchill becomes our great...God.

For Europeans, you're rebels against the establishment.

You break all the rules and elect a Labour government.

We elect a Socialist government...

You put Winston in power.

He doesn't do badly despite the trade unions.

You get rid of him again.

We throw him out.

And whom do you elect?

To Europe�s disbelief, the most conservative regime possible.

Who steps in but Heath...Conservative.

You're not bad yourself.

You make De Gaulle a national hero.

Like Joan of Arc, Louis XIV and the Cro-Magnon man.

Who?

The Cro-Magnon man.

Ah, Cro-Magnon man.

You soon get fed up with him.

So you get rid of him to elect, with a refutable logic...

- No, 'irrefutable'. - Irrefutable. I'm sorry.

- You quickly elect his prostitute. - His what?

- His substitute? - Very good.

One thing is strange.

- Catholic democracies... - Or Protestant ones.

Christian democracies struggle in Europe.

After Eisenhower and De Gasperi died

we thought that was it, but it's worse than ever.

That one's beyond me.

Let's go and sit by the fire.

Are you in France on business?

Not this time. I was visiting a cousin in Paris to introduce Maria to him.

Do you like France?

Yes. This sort of meal recon...

- Reconciles. - It reconciles me with the French.

I thought English fashion more daring.

I thought that...er...English fashion was most daring.

He means 'more daring'.

- Oh, don't you like it? - Yes, it's very nice.

- Where's Ad�la�de? - Upstairs, I think.

Over the years Ad�la�de has become our shadow.

Don't you feel that our love and happiness have a certain insolence?

A certain aggressiveness?

This aggressive happiness

- hurts Ad�la�de. - And why?

I don't understand what you mean.

Ad�la�de has always lived in our shadow.

She has become a mere witness to our happiness.

We didn't stop to think that no one wants to be a witness all their life.

What are you getting at?

Just this.

It's time we looked at Ad�la�de.

Yes. We should marry her off.

You take a refuge in marriage like a Bourget heroine.

Marriage provides happiness

and a refuge.

Our marriage wasn't a refuge.

It was much more than that.

BLINDING MOMENTS OF THE LOVE FILM

I didn't take refuge in you.

But maybe I disappeared into you.

What happens to a girl who disappears into happiness?

Maybe she gains a little depth.

Maybe only then does she start living.

Maybe...

Maybe the excess of that love...

...leads to its own death.

A woman wants to identify with...

...escape to...

...and disappear into the man she loves.

I know it's not important.

I know it's an absurd question.

It's terribly middle-class and anachronistic.

But why do men always have affairs?

Silly girl.

Would you like to travel?

Yes, of course.

Can you afford the time?

I'm not going.

How will you manage without Agn�s?

You'd be going alone.

I forgot. The priest is coming to lunch.

Man was given two reasons to exist by his maker.

The need for emotion and the desire for knowledge.

This desire for knowledge has led to the precious discoveries

that prove nature's superiority.

But we must control this desire when it goes too far.

Desires leads to monstrosities.

I'm sorry to quote Voltaire, but he says...

...highwaymen were the first to use torture...

...on lost tradesmen and travellers.

That could explain place-names...

...like Purse-thief and Cutthroat on the edge of your woods.

In the Middle-Ages the Inquisition and witch-finders...

...prefer certain forms of torture.

These were specified to a particular time or region.

Hence a whole series of horrors:

tearing out cartilages for venial sins...

...dismembering and skinning...

...reducing bones to a pulp, blinding with quicklime...

...beheading, crushing under great weights...

...and throwing people into boilers.

It was all totally inhuman.

Of one thing I'm certain.

The emotion, anger and horror men feel

at the thought or the spectacle of vice

and which the Bible talks about

lead us to adopt the right attitude.

That's why the culprit must humbly admit to her crimes...

...and accept her punishment which will purify her before God and man.

I beg you to admit to your crimes.

Love has been my only crime.

Love is a crime because of what it arouses

in the hearts of those who practise it.

God is divine.

Blasphemy! Blasphemy!

God is divine.

Her soul, her heart and her spirit

are animated by the appetites of her body.

They rule her under the devil's influence.

Submit her body to the question so that, through pain, it finds

its true original vocation.

We accept this test to save her.

Torturer.

And now, the latest news with Jean-Claude Bourret.

Fighting continues between the Jordanian army and the Palestinians.

It is thought that Jordan wants to drive the Palestinians into Syria.

As a result Kuwait,

a small but rich oil-producing country

has suspended all financial aid to Jordan.

An important decision, since each year Kuwait gives Jordan

40 million dollars.

In the Channel, six fishermen's bodies have been found...

What did that whore look like?

That whore? What whore?

- You said Michel had a mistress? - Me? No.

You keep going on about it.

I lied.

Has he a mistress?

- No. - You're crazy! Crazy!

Crazy!

I understand.

Do what you think is best, darling.

You were worried too.

- We were wrong to worry. - Yes, we were.

My little grey mouse.

Remember when mum and dad went out and left us alone at home?

You felt intensely unhappy.

You hated them.

You hated the whole world.

You just sat there, burning with resentment...

...biting you fist.

I'd take you in my arms.

You'd be all tense and stiff with hate.

I'd tell you any old story.

You'd burst into tears.

And you'd fall asleep.

Put on Michel's pyjamas.

You're the one who'll fall asleep now.

I'm going to tell you stories and legends...

...like you used to tell me.

You're so much prettier than me.

Yes, I understand.

I'm on my way.

Is it little Thierry?

He's on a respirator.

That's awful.

It's so unfair.

I hate life.

This time it's your fault.

I hate life.

Day after day...

...I always lose.

I hate life.

I feel empty.

And tired.

So tired...

Subtitles transcribed from a TV print by Skulhead and K12

Resynched and added by suckmysound for cinemageddon (2013)