Where is the villa?
In the parks in Thionville.
It's easy to find. It's called...
It's a woman's name...
No, I don't remember.
It belongs to some people from Rouen.
They had it built, then something happened.
They never come back. Except for her, at Easter, sometimes.
- In summer they rent it out. - Hello? Hello?
The estate agent also tried to call there.
She never answers the phone.
- What is her name? - Baxter.
Véra Baxter.
Véra Baxter. I don't know her.
They've been coming here each summer for 10 years.
They have several children.
- He's a promoter, Jean Baxter. Have you heard of him? - No.
And he is a journalist, Michel Cayre.
I said you're a journalist.
And that your name is Michel Cayre.
It's true. She's still not answering the phone.
Are you going there?
I don't know.
Baxter, Véra Baxter.
No, she hasn't come back yet.
No, no-one.
Don't mention it.
You're welcome. Goodbye.
He's called 4 times since noon.
- From Paris? - From Chantilly.
She left this morning around 10:00.
I was sleeping.
We were supposed to meet here around noon.
Is it 15:30?
What did she say to the estate agent? Do you know?
That she needed to think it over before renting.
She thought it was very expensive.
The villa has already been rented by Jean Baxter, right?
- Yes - Since when?
Yesterday. Other people wanted it.
Jean Baxter found out from the travel agent.
Suppose she doesn't want the villa?
It's only a question of money.
It would remain empty. That's all.
But rented.
Jean Baxter knows... that...
she didn't come to Thionville alone, to rent the house?
He wasn't entirely sure. I was to tell him.
I saw you last night coming out of the Hotel de Paris.
The stated price is wrong, too, of course.
Yes, the real price is enormous, I think.
You came to ask me not to tell Véra Baxter the truth?
Yes, exactly.
When I met Jean Baxter here, I thought you were his wife.
Then I found out you weren't.
- You saw her again in Paris? - Exactly.
I met her one afternoon.
She was alone.
The wind has calmed.
Often here, in the afternoon,
But it's always windy.
- The Atlantic. - Yes
The sea is rough.
It makes you feel like swimming.
I'll leave her.
I need... time.
I'm at the point where...
I couldn't touch another woman.
Maybe after the summer.
I don't want to suffer.
I drink too much, excuse me.
Do you often come to Thionville?
No.
This name, Baxter, it means nothing to you?
Nothing, no.
A social position...
This recent wealth, you understand? Terrifying.
He's always on the move, on the run. Hardly ever at home.
She's always chasing behind with the children. A non-existent couple.
But at the same time...
He's chasing after money. Tragic!
She, at heart, is a sort of Catholic.
He's been ruined three times. She's always stayed with him.
They have lived everywhere.
She follows him.
I lost her. I don't know when.
I can't work it out.
I don't know why I continue.
- You met her by chance? - I mean... Yes.
A series of circumstances which added up to...
the same thing.
The first time didn't count.
I thought we'd never see each other again.
It was the next day...
The desire that impels, you know? That penetrates everything.
A desire to see her again... so powerful!
She felt this desire too?
I don't know.
You said you didn't know when you lost her.
Probably the first day.
Has anything changed since this trip?
Yes, I think so.
That she stays locked up in that villa?
Not only that, no.
It's like a kind of... docility. Yes... that's it.
For some time now.
Which she hides behind.
- You understand? - A little, yes.
- A kind of certitude. - Maybe.
I don't know.
What are you afraid of?
It's hard to say.
A sense of dread. Since midday.
From the time when Jean Baxter started calling every 15 minutes...
for news of his wife.
- Do you like it? - It's big.
What is this music I've been hearing all day in Thionville?
It's all I can hear.
It's some people who've moved into a villa, over there by the forest.
You're going to rent it?
I must speak to Jean. It's expensive.
I phoned home, he wasn't there.
Jean will call at 17:00. He'll sort out the commission.
He'll call you?
Yes, exactly.
It could cost any amount. It's all the same for him, you know.
- Do you know where he goes on weekends? - Different places.
And this time?
To Chantilly, with a model. Did you know?
Yes.
It seems he'll be spending the summer in the Balearics.
Yes?
He told me: "This year I'll go abroad."
"For once, I'm going to leave her alone. Without me."
We haven't seen each other for a long time.
I went to Paris in October.
You were in Bordeaux, I think.
We go away together sometimes. He brings me along.
- You didn't mention it? - No.
After Bordeaux, you went to the coast.
The weather was fine.
You went back to where people knew you.
Arcangues.
You'd never been back there before.
Exactly.
- It was he who wanted to go? - Yes
You didn't come to Thionville alone?
No.
You were on the dock last night, with a man who was not Jean Baxter.
It's so unexpected.
It's hard to believe.
You came out of the Hotel de Paris.
Yes.
Jean knows?
No.
Are you sure, Véra?
He thinks he knows.
But no.
You mean... How would he find out?
From me.
Then you've spoken about this kind of thing?
My own affairs are short.
I don't what happens between people over a long time.
It's hard to say.
It's impossible.
We don't know each other.
No.
- How long has this been going on? - Since October.
Just after the trip to Bordeaux.
Before.
I met him by the Alma bridge. It was raining.
He hardly noticed me.
I was in a café, waiting for the rain to stop.
He arrived.
He didn't recognise me right away.
We went to the hotel.
No, it's not true.
We lie a lot, you and I.
A lot, yes.
Why did you come?
I may have gone to see you if you hadn't come.
- Do they know each other? - Who?
They played poker. They've sailed together.
- Then I met him. - It was last year.
True. Last year I avoided coming.
Jean had affairs here last year?
No. Or very short ones.
So sometimes you're his only affair.
Yes.
- How old is Christine? - 17.
You had her very soon after your marriage?
15 months.
It was after Christine was born that the money started coming in?
Yes, exactly.
Then he lost everything, just before Marc was born.
You've lived everywhere. He's taken you everywhere.
Yes.
- 17. - Yes.
Was it he who asked you to come?
Yes.
We've never spoken about Jean Baxter before.
It's the first time.
Yes.
Our relationship was never serious, for him.
- You knew that? - Yes
What didn't you know?
Whether you were unhappy.
Yes.
- He doesn't know that. - No.
Were you never frightened about this relationship?
No.
You were right.
Does he always delude himself that it will last forever?
Yes, every time. It's true.
Do you believe him?
I don't know any more.
When he goes away, he sometimes goes for days without calling.
Sometimes four days.
Then he starts calling again.
Even when we went to Venice?
- Yes, even then. - I remember.
On the desk in the room, there were cheques in the name of Véra Baxter.
When he goes away with a woman,
he send cheques to Véra Baxter,
his wife.
He talks to other women about her.
He talks about her a lot.
He says...
Wait...
He would say that Véra Baxter can only be known through desire.
And that he would like to know her again.
To meet her, as if for the first time.
What was he afraid of?
When he called you?
He has always been afraid for you. You know that.
When you first meet Jean Baxter,
you think he is a lonely man.
You feel sorry that he's married to a woman like Véra Baxter.
Then you forget that this wife even exists.
It's only later that you discover in Jean Baxter, a sort of...
inability to love.
Sometimes you notice the truth.
When?
This morning, when he kept calling.
He imagined you dead. Here, locked up. Dead.
I forgot to tell you. You remember Bernard Fontaine?
He died in a car crash two days ago.
Véra?
I'm here.
Where are you?
Chantilly.
Are you alone?
She's gone out for a walk in the woods.
It's foggy.
Here it's windy.
You didn't go to Thionville alone, Véra.
Véra...
- Where are you? - I don't know any more.
It was about the villa...
It's expensive. One million.
I wanted to talk to you before renting it.
It's a lot.
What does it matter?
It's big. 8 rooms. It has a beach.
Véra...
Clair Bois has already been rented.
It's unbearable, Véra.
We've been there too many times.
Véra...
But the parks here...
It's terrible... terrible.
Terrible!
It's impossible, Véra.
We need a change of place.
...of everything.
Everything! Everything!
We've tried, Véra.
Jean!
Véra!
We could leave.
Go abroad.
Leave France.
17 years!
And with all these children.
We should separate. We should divorce.
No longer live together.
Leave each other. Lose each other.
And then... find each other again.
I saw Monique Combes.
He's here.
I talked a lot. About everything.
I also lied a lot.
About everything. A lot.
- I'm always lying... to everyone. - You're the only one who tells the truth.
And then these parks...
It's so empty. It's like California.
Jean...
It's over. Over!
It's over.
Jean!
It's over. Over!
Jean!
Don't you see? It's over, don't you see?
I don't know anything any more.
Jean!
I'll catch a flight. I'll be in Thionville at 8.
Don't bother. I will have left with him. Left Thionville.
Véra?
I shut myself away here to kill myself, I think.
I don't like anything or anyone any more.
Véra?
Véra...
This idea of summer, again...
It returns too fast. Too fast...
It's wild here in the winter.
Listen. A party.
I see you've called Thionville.
You are Véra Baxter?
I'm here on behalf of Michel Cayre.
He asked me to come and fetch you.
Who are you?
Have you been there long?
You were talking about the summer... that it was painful to think of it.
- Where is Michel Cayre? - At the hotel, I think.
He said that someone else...
would have better luck persuading you to leave...
this fortress of a villa.
I was about to go and join him.
It's a long way, and you don't have a car.
I would have called the estate agents, to come and fetch me.
or I would have walked.
- What time is it? - I don't have a watch, but it's not late.
The sun is still high. Look.
Has he been drinking?
Yes, enough to kill you if he was driving.
Along with all those children you have, the two of you...
- He told you. - Yes
- You don't know him? - Not at all. No.
We spent a couple of hours together at the hotel bar.
We talked for a long time.
You know, as happens sometimes.
We can go when you like. My car is outside.
It's strange. I didn't hear you come in.
- Was that your husband on the phone? - Yes
- About the villa. - I know.
I'm going to rent it.
A party...
Where is it? Did you see?
Beside the forest. One of the last villas over there.
Do you like it?
It's big. Well situated. But...
I never noticed how ugly it is.
In winter, people have to go inside... sleep...
There are leftovers and bread in the kitchen.
Just now, two women met here.
They talked for a long time.
- Do you know them? - Not yet.
We walked around here with Michel Cayre. We saw them.
Then he didn't stay in his room, like he said?
No.
I don't think he could.
He couldn't bear waiting.
Is he still at the hotel?
What do you think? Is he still there?
Maybe.
He should leave me.
He says he has reached the point where he cannot touch another woman.
Not yet.
Did you watch those women a long time?
All the time they were speaking.
Why?
Watching from a distance, we imagined we could hear them speaking.
What were they saying?
Jean talked about a writer who died in a car crash last week.
Bernard Fontaine.
- Do you know the name? - No.
I knew him, here, two years ago.
I'd met him once in Paris.
We agreed to see each other.
I remember. Near the Alma bridge, I think.
- You didn't go? - No.
Véra Baxter...
What is it?
I'm looking at you.
Michel Cayre says:
"At first, she doesn't look beautiful. Then she becomes beautiful."
Let's go, if you like.
We'll stop at the estate agents. I'll confirm the rental.
Then we'll go the hotel.
I'll go straight to bed.
I'll eat in my room.
I am so tired!
Is that OK?
I don't believe that you want to go back to the hotel.
What do I want?
Nothing, I think.
This is one of those moments where we must wait.
I'd like you to leave. I'd like to sleep.
I'd like to leave you. But I can't.
You are in danger of death, I think.
This morning, I thought that I wanted to die.
Then I heard the party over there.
- This evening... - No. I think you're mistaken.
This morning you were expecting something.
The call from Jean Baxter.
Then this evening... nothing, I think. Nothing.
- You heard all of the phone call? - Yes.
- You married very young? - I was 20.
He was a friend of my brothers. I always knew him.
- I don't know what happened. - When?
This morning.
And now?
I've seen you before, haven't I?
I don't think so. My identity would mean nothing to you.
I might have seen you, too, in one of the bars in Thionville...
while you were waiting for Jean Baxter to finish a poker game.
But apparently not.
It never happened.
- He was in Chantilly? - Yes. With a model.
He still goes there quite often.
She'd gone out for a walk.
He was alone. She's beautiful. Very young.
She's not always there. She travels, you know?
I understand.
He told me I spoke the truth.
- Jean Baxter, your husband? - Yes.
- Michel Cayre says you lie. - I do to him.
- And to Jean Baxter? - He never asks me questions.
I'm only passing through your life.
So...
If a secret was revealed here tonight, it would go no further.
There would be no consequences.
The party.
Foreigners, it seems.
We've been hearing it everywhere in Thionville.
Without knowing where it was, where it came from.
Then we saw, just now, when we arrived with Michel Cayre.
We called it "exterior turbulence."
Like we'd say about a storm or the wind.
Probably because it has pervaded everything in Thionville.
No-one can avoid hearing it.
It's strange. Like it's drifting out to sea.
In half an hour it will be night.
He said it was expensive?
For him, it's not very expensive. Not a great deal of money, no.
He would paid even more to lose you.
He makes a lot of money.
That's what people say about him, at first, when they meet him,
that he makes a lot of money? - Exactly, yes.
And that he made it all very easily?
Yes.
And that everything he earns, he spends on women and gambling?
What they say is: "Everything he steals..."
Yes.
He paid Michel Cayre one million. The same price as the villa.
I looked at the cheque book on his desk one night.
It was probably unavoidable.
Yes. Without that...
Do you mean you were unfaithful to Jean Baxter?
I went with Michel Cayre because it was paid for.
It was the money that...
permitted...
- What? - The affair.
- One million, you said? - Yes.
They met in a baccarat club.
He told you about it?
Michel Cayre phoned me.
He said: "I met Jean Baxter last week."
"He asked me to call you. You must know what it's about."
I said I did.
I went to see Michel Cayre in the afternoon. He opened the door.
The room was dark, full of another woman's things.
He said that his first thought...
was to keep Jean Baxter's cheque,
without calling me.
And then... he changed his mind.
He wanted to meet me because of the price I was worth: 1 million.
I asked him if Jean Baxter knew what time it was supposed to happen.
He told me he didn't know.
That afternoon, at Michel Cayre's home, there was a phone call.
I heard a cry. Someone called out.
Then they hung up.
I shouldn't have seen Michel Cayre any more.
Then he phoned again.
As if that one million was inexhaustible.
You understand?
You're not listening.
Perhaps you didn't hear me?
I was looking outside.
Michel Cayre told you about this?
He spoke of a gambling debt,
but the amount was the same: one million.
I heard what you said.
You didn't speak to Jean Baxter about that afternoon with Michel Cayre?
No.
Shouldn't you have?
Shouldn't you have brought this infidelity to Jean Baxter?
That was the plan, right?
Yes.
And you didn't do it.
No.
I thought he would ask me about it.
He didn't.
When he came home in the evening,
he said that he was very tired from work.
He didn't eat anything.
He went to his room.
I remember, I was watching television.
He avoided talking to me, seeing me.
When the children had gone to bed,
I heard him leave his room, walk across the hallway.
He must have gone to play cards in one of those clubs.
The next day, and for several days,
we avoided each other at home...
avoided speaking...
Then I came to Thionville to rent the villa.
I thought that more time had passed.
Almost all winter.
And also that there had been a trip.
To Bordeaux, I believe, in October.
Pay no attention to what I say.
No.
Michel Cayre says:
"Jean Baxter has the charm of money."
Michel Cayre doesn't know how to make money.
- I don't know. - No. He doesn't know.
Money is a terrible thing. It's never enough. It's terrible.
- Yes. Michel Cayre couldn't know. - No.
He said: "I've never refused money, wherever it came from."
"I'll never refuse, whatever the circumstances."
- I think he's right. - Yes.
- Will Jean Baxter be coming this summer? - I don't know.
All you need to do is ask him?
Maybe. A few days for the children.
The rest of the time...
He'll go to the Balearics, with that woman in Chantilly?
Perhaps.
You know, he's like the others.
He does what his colleagues do.
He goes where they go: to Cannes, the Balearics.
Besides the money, he's not very imaginative.
You see? He's an ordinary man.
It's all the same to me. I even prefer it, you know?
Apart from the money, he has nothing.
Just that.
He's not even a rich man.
He has money. That's all.
- And Jean Baxter knows that? - Yes. Exactly.
I see Jean Baxter.
I look at you and I see him.
He was crying.
- This evening? - Yes.
He said he had to do it, that it was a crime.
That you were...
- That one day he would give you... - Yes, it was pointless.
He'd made bets, too? Twice, I think. No?
- With his friends. - I don't know.
Three years ago.
I didn't know.
It was when he met Michel Cayre, last summer,
that he knew what he had to do.
Jean Baxter was always in an affair.
There was no time when he wasn't.
And your affairs were those of Jean Baxter?
Maybe. I don't know.
Yes.
You understood that he had to do it?
Sometimes...
In the summer... yes...
He would go away for a very long time, sometimes.
The sun is dropping into the sea.
It still feels wintry, through the colours.
I lied.
- It wasn't in October? - No.
It was three days ago. In Paris.
It was raining.
I was sheltering in a café.
It was Bernard Fontaine?
No. I don't know his name.
We went to a hotel.
- You saw him again? - No.
You mean, it wasn't worth it?
Yes.
It's strange... this pain... when you told me...
As if I'd just lost you too.
The light is fading.
Look at the sea. It's almost black.
He's remained very young, Jean Baxter.
He doesn't understand suffering.
And in the same way,
he must be happy with all his strength. No?
You were right.
He was mistaken. We were all mistaken.
He knew nothing before this evening.
The pain had to wait for days and days,
before you could speak.
Something will be left behind from it.
Less childishness perhaps, less innocence.
It's odd. I can see him more clearly than the man at the hotel.
Jean Baxter, the man of money.
The lost man.
The puppet.
The siren of the powder magazines. It's six o'clock.
I don't understand. The estate agent should have called.
Maybe they haven't been able to contact the owners.
It's taking a long time.
Let's go. We'll stop at the agency, if you don't mind.
There's no point. The house is already rented. It's done.
Jean Baxter rented it yesterday morning.
The agency knows. The cheque has been written and sent.
Michel Cayre saw Monique Combes at the Hotel de Paris this morning.
She told him.
- Did they mention the price? - Enormous, it seems.
That was the word Monique Combes used.
- How much? - She didn't know.
I went to Villiers by way of the lakes.
The forest has been destroyed around there. Many acres.
It's terrible.
It's unrecognisable.
It's a difficult time for everyone.
Yes.
The people from Rouen, the Jacquements,
had this place built.
They are separated, more or less, I think.
Something must have happened here, several years ago.
I can't remember.
The wife tried to kill herself, or maybe someone tried to kill her.
I don't know.
Unless I let it go...
if I ever do... it will remain empty and rented.
I can still cancel it.
Go to the agency and say that I have changed my mind.
But then... the children? Where would they go?
Christine is supposed to be going to England.
There would only be lrène...
- The youngest? - Yes.
It's hard to separate us.
She's difficult, stubborn.
She's often unhappy, too.
She lies. White lies.
Jean says it's nothing.
But I'm frightened.
Michel Cayre has left.
Yes.
He had already left when you arrived.
I came on my own initiative after he left.
Why?
Because of your name, I think.
Since the first time I heard it,
at Hotel de Paris,
I wanted to see the person it belongs to.
Just because of those two words.
Véra Baxter.
Because of that name.
Véra Baxter.
Yes.
I recognized it.
Do you remember? It was a thousand years ago.
Not here, in those forests, on the shore of the Atlantic,
there were women.
Their husbands were away, almost all the time. The Holy War, the Crusades.
They would be alone for months, in their huts,
In the middle of the forest, waiting.
And that's how they started to talk to the trees, the sea,
to the animals of the forest.
They burned them?
Exactly.
One of them was called Véra Baxter.
I don't know what I want any more.
You wanted to die?
It's true that it's the easiest thing to want.
You knew her once.
Since you started speaking, I knew that you, too, once...
It's one possible identity, that perhaps I'll keep for you.
It'll get dark very quickly now.
The electricity has been cut off.
- It's to be locked up. - Why?
It'll be night.
There's no need, I think. But as you wish.
It was fine in Paris, too, today.
- It rained, I think. - In the morning.
We would always go to the beaches of the Atlantic.
- A custom? - Yes.
It'll continue, I think. Here, still.
He only liked the Atlantic.
And you?
I had no opinion.
- Is it nice in the Balearics? - I don't know.
English subtitles by Kinsayder at KG