MIX-UP ou MELI-MELO (1985)
A film by Françoise Romand
The premise for a 60-minute documentary: Two female babies were mixed-up at birth by mistake in England in 1936, and we are told the story through all the people involved. That description could sound like a dullish BBC documentary from the 70s, but this example is far from dull. The film begins with two old ladies introducing themselves to us - the first one is Margaret Wheeler, the natural mother of Peggy and the foster-mother of Valerie, who were born in Nottingham, England 48 years previously. The other is Blanche Rylatt, the natural mother of Valerie and the foster-mother of Peggy. They tell us the circumstances of how the babies were mistakenly mixed-up. Then Margaret's eccentric husband, Charles, introduces himself to us through an open window, telling us about the 8mm films he's made. Each of these scenes is carefully set up with people walking into shot and out again and then in the background. Indeed, most of the scenes in this unorthodox gem of a film are structured in different ways. It's unusual that an all-French crew made a documentary film about English people in England. The end credits are appropriately playful, with each of the crew entering the frame from below onto some scales and smiling and waving, then returning from where they came.
Mix-up ou Meli-Melo is a peculiar film that is innovative, inventive and intriguing, and turns a possibly dour documentary film into something unique.
"Her highly stylized presentation of what it all meant is at once a collective psychoanalysis, a danse and humorous 19th-century novel with Dickensian characters, an essay on representation, a poetic integration of portraiture with domestic architecture, and a tragicomic existential melodrama. Having seen this film about half a dozen times, I've found that it grows in power and resonance with every viewing.
Romand's attack on her material seems intuitive rather than theorical or intellectual, but the seriousness and thoroughness with which she persues it is not only charting the process of two families reassessing their
behaviour and experiences, but also contriving to bring this process about - create a formal beauty and a witty precision in framing, pacing, editing, use of music, and mise-en-scene that is inseparable from the film's ethical and philosophical project. My favourite film in my choice of Ten Best Movies of 1988."
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"As interesting as the story of "Mix Up" is the way Romand tells it: a queer, distanced, high-tech style, with carefully composed and balanced frames, symbolic settings and many obviously scripted and staged scenes. There's a pristine, farcical quality about the style, but it's very overcomposed rigor ironically suggests the absurdity of a world where havoc can be wreaked by mere chance, where things simply can't be controlled. Mix-Up is as unique and interesting a documentary as you're likely to see for quite a while." - Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times
"Miss Romand makes documentaries that look like those of nobody else. Though she sticks to facts, they’re often facts that few writers of supposedly serious fiction would dare to touch except under pseudonym... It’s enough, as in fiction, that the filmmaker is able to persuade us to share her curiousity, surprise or point of view... A deliciously oddball movie... MIX-UP has some of the style of Peter Greenaway’s The Falls and The Draughtsman’s Contract... it’s the work of a filmmaker of original vision." - Vincent Canby, New York Times
"But the film is consistently funny and poignant; at times raucous and roughhewn and at times affectingly delicate." - Michael Sragow, San Francisco Examiner
"Her intelligence and point of view - along with her youth and foolhardiness - is manifest in every frame." - David Edelstein, Village Voice
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After seeing this page, Françoise Romand contacted me and kindly sent me a complimentary DVD of Mix-Up ou Meli-Melo and the card below. Merci beaucoup, Françoise!
