FIN
Screen fades to black.
(Credits role.)
Vincent Cassel as Jacques Mesrine
Vincent Cassel as Vinz
Monica Bellucci as Lisa
Catherine Deneuve as Séverine Serizy/ Belle De Jour
Eric Elmosnino as Serge Gainsbourg
Laetitia Casta as Bridgitte Bardot
Anna Mouglalis as Juliette Gréco
Anna Mouglalis as Coco Chanel
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard
Juliette Binoche as Elise
Romain Duris as Pierre
Gérard Depardieu as Guido
The last note of Les amours perdues fades out. I sit for moment in silence at the DVD kicks back to the main menu. I switch off the television, and reflect. The clock reads 1:07am. I lock up the house, and proceed upstairs to my room. I hit the lights, scramble around for my headphones, scroll down to ‘Serge’ on itunes and hit play - Requiem Por Un con – That should set the mood just right. I’ve successfully managed to stay lost in the world created by one of the half dozen French films I’ve watched over the past couple of weeks.
“Monsieur, monsieur?” says the imagined concierge standing across the desk from me, “do you wish to check out of this fantasy?” "No merci", I reply, “another bottle of le chateau Toulon six huit. and vite vite monsieur. Vite vite.”
I start to fantasize about what my life could be. How my life should be. Why couldn’t I or shouldn’t I live a life as chic! as tragique! as hédonistique! as the likes of Serge Gainsbourg or Vincent Cassel. The modern day equivalent of Bridgitte Bardot is just waiting for my warm embrace. With a little tinkering to my everyday goings on I could become the next Serge Gainsbourg. Bar the fact that I can’t play the piano, paint, speak French or write paradigm-shifting lyrics I’m almost there. These are just mere speed bumps on my way to having a scandalous love affair with Mrs. Bruni.
I imagine myself five years down the line, standing on a small fire escape balcony, in the bohemian quarter of Paris, sucking on the remains of the cigarette, reflective, as I observe the chaotic street scenes below. Hysterical cackling and the sounds of les flics disrupt the silence of night as un con chases another into the darkness. Inside incense mixes with the smell of burnt tobacco and expensive perfume. A Smith Corona deluxe sits at my desk, next to a half completed manuscript. Remnants of hash and papers lie strewn across the small coffee table, which holds on top of it a bottle of cognac and couple of bottles of uncorked red. A record collection with enough serotonin to kill the likes of Lester Bangs, clings for dear life to the shelf above my bed, on the verge of collapse.
“Come back to bed my love” says the beautiful Amber Heard. I turn around the face her. Her gorgeous, naked body lies entwined in a sea of white Egyptian cotton sheets (thread count 1500). Rolling over she notices something under my pillow. She reaches under and pulls out a revolver. “What’s this?” She asks, terror running across her angelic face. I grab the gun from her, spin the cylinder and bring the barrel to my temple.
“Oh god, what are you doing?” I cock the hammer back.
“No! No!”
CLICK! I start to laugh.
“Oh my god, asshole!” She hits me with a pillow.
Shock still in her eyes, “Is it loaded?!” She looks inside the guns cylinder and sees five bullets in the chambers. She gasps. “You’re crazy!” And tackles me back onto the bed. We continue to make love for the rest of the night. That is until tragedy strikes….
The headline reads:
COUPLE DIES UNDER A TIDAL WAVE OF GREAT MUSIC
Better still…
UNE VIE TRAGIQUE
2016-05-20 17:18
Neil Solomon was pronounced dead today in his small apartment in Montparnasse. Paramedics conclude the cause of death was exhaustion from a seventeen hour-long orgy with eighteen runway models.
Neighbors alerted police when the cacophonic sounds of orgiastic delights were replaced by mournful sighs and wailing. On arrival Inspector Depardieu found eighteen scantily clad women scattered around the apartment in various stages of mourning.
One model, (who preferred not to be named), sobbed uncontrollably as she recounted the events: “We had just finished Jean Paul’s (Gaultier) show. Neil had invited us all back to his apartment for some drinks. Seventeen hours later and…. this. I’m sorry I need, I can’t…”
Another said, “It’s so sad. C’est tragique. I was number eighteen. You understand? I was eighteen! I never got the chance to… I’m sorry, I need… I can’t…”
Informed over the phone of the tragedy, Neil’s father, Peter Solomon, asked as to how his son had died? “He died of over sex exhaustion monsieur. A seventeen-hour ‘session’ with eighteen… well, very desirable women.”
“That’s my boy!” responded his father in an eerily optimistic tone and promptly hung up.
Tributes flew in from across the world. Canal Plus have already optioned the script to his biopic, (suspiciously written by the deceased). It’s said to star Vincent Cassel and Amber Heard.
By Anonymous
But perhaps prophecies cooked up at 2:43am are no sure path towards clairvoyance. The following morning I wake up tired and alone. No Bridgitte in sight to spoon with. No Alizée to caress. Later I find myself scrolling through the channels stopping on Seinfeld. It soon occurs to me that I have more in common with George Castanza than Serge Gainsbourg. I’m unemployed, I live with my parents and I guess a receding hairline is not entirely out of the equation.
My chief concern that day was to find helium for a remote controlled floating shark while Serge lies in bed making Bridgitte the Bonnie to his Clyde.
This has always been my problem. Delusions of grandeur verging on pure solipsism. The inability to distinguish the difference between fantastical European films and my own life. But so what? We’ve all at one stage or another imagined our lives as one big epic film, starring ourselves in the lead role. These delusions of grandeur are necessary. Its what lets us escape from our mundane existences, whether it be for three minutes, or three hours. It lets us believe that we’re a little more exciting then our day-to-day lives suggest.
Alas, the time is now 3:07 am. Tomorrow I begin my path towards ‘chic’dom. I’ll rid myself of all forms of technology. Begin an epic vinyl collection. Take up smoking two packs a day, drinking three bottles of wine, embrace a life of hedonism and get off all forms of social networking. After all, no one checks-in (online) at the Chateau Marmont despite what The Eagles might have you believe.
And as I become increasingly more pretentious, trapped in my own self-delusion don’t pass judgment or blame me. Blame it on summer nights in November. Blame it on French New Wave Cinema, on Bardot, on Gréco, on Cassel or Serge. After all, this is a requiem pour un con.
