Clean (2004, French/Canadian)

Clean is the second pairing of writer-director Olivier Assayas and actress Maggie Cheung. The first, Irma Vep, won Cheung an international cult following, adding to her successes on the Hong Kong action circuit and in the art films of Wong Kar-Wai. Her performance in Clean earned her a well-deserved Best Actress honor at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and should serve to make her an even more recognizable star, despite a limited release in the United States.

Clean follows Cheung’s character, Emily Wang, as she travels through North America and Europe in a quest to regain control of her life after a lengthy addiction to heroin and the related death of her husband. Unlike many films that deal directly with drug abuse and rock n’ roll lifestyles, Clean is remarkably underplayed, a much quieter piece than the subject matter might indicate. Cheung is the heart of the movie, effortlessly portraying a woman who is forced to change her individualistic, hedonistic lifestyle in order to survive. As her gruff father-in-law, Nick Nolte quietly shows us a man whose belief in forgiveness gives Emily a chance to redeem herself.

Assayas directs deftly, capturing a sense of realism that exists outside of the more conventional realist dramas of Hollywood and mainstream European films. His camera moves quickly, capturing blurred images and striving to project a sense of time as it rushes through the urban landscapes of Paris, London, and San Francisco. In one sense, time is what Emily is batting against in her attempt to kick drugs, but in another way, it is what she is trying to capture and protect as she seeks the stability to reconnect with the young son whom she barely knows.

Adding to the texture built by Assayas’s camera and the stellar central performances is Brian Eno’s subtle score. Eno is the perfect composer for this project – an individual who has known the pains and joys of a breakneck lifestyle, but who has since matured to accept and celebrate even life’s more painful changes.