La Captive

Ariane lives in Simon’s large apartment. Under surveillance. Simon wants to know everything about her. He follows her, has someone accompany her when she goes out, attempts to surprise her and badgers her endlessly with questions. Still, Ariane manages to preserve a certain margin of mental and physical freedom. Simon has pain and pleasure and he is quite aware that even in moments of physical closeness, even when he thinks he finally possesses her, she escapes him once again. Of course, the fact that he knows about Ariane’s preference for women, that she leads a double life, only aggravates his pain, his helplessness and probably intensifies his desire for her. He goes so far as to try to break into her world, a world of girls and songs. But it’s not only because of Ariane’s attraction to women and the difference in sexes that make his demands impossible: demands of total merging, of osmosis, of the obsessional desire to completely penetrate the other’s subjectivity. There is also the fact that the other is another, irreductibly so. The other is a stranger and Ariane remains impenetrable. This is the story of two lovers. A tragedy.