There’s a subtle yet traumatizing moment at the very start of Louis Malle‘s deeply challenging 1992 masterpiece Damage. We see Dr. Stephen Fleming (Jeremy Irons), a former physician now in government as the minister for the environment, traveling from work in this chauffeured car to his luxury home where his lovely wife Ingrid (Miranda Richardson) is cooking in the kitchen while a servant tidies up about the estate. He greets his spouse, engages in phatic greetings and slips into a side room with a drink, a warm fire blazing, the decor furnished in privileged opulence and mementos of his familial and career successes. He stands alone among these trinkets and in a somber bended pose, his face sallow and his eyes lost to an unseen horizon, he seems to fall into desperately hollow abyss. The scene fades to black and the story begins.
Right in the opening salvo, without a word to say so, we immediately know where we stand with Fleming, this brief glimpse into the shadows of his unhappiness and discontent creating the foundation for everything that follows. And what does follow is truly a fascinating and heartbreaking journey. And while it runs nearly two hours, it is its passionate economy that cuts to its raw heart with gestures and glances that rarely allows words to spoil what our own natural chemistry can so easily betray.
The story centers on Fleming, who meets the beautiful young Anna Barton (Juliette Binoche) at a reception, she the daughter of British diplomat Elizabeth Prideaux (Leslie Caron). In a paralyzing instant, there is an immediate and near shattering physical attraction between them, their eyes locked in silence as an kind of unspoken truth is passed between them. There is a problem though, beyond his marriage. Not long after, she arrives at his house on the arm of his adult son Martyn (Rupert Graves), his new girlfriend. They again, share a knowing look but say nothing until days later, she call him at his office, and replies bluntly: “Tell me where you are and I’ll be there within an hour.” This is more than incendiary, it’s arousing for them in ways that leave him ever unraveling. “Who are you?” he pleads at her feet.
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The sex is profound, but again without a word between them, Fleming moved to depths of personal pleasure he did not know existed. However, of course, this comes at a steep price, one that takes time to be revealed, his obsession with her slowly ruining him. As time passes, secrets and history with Anna are laid bare, and it paints their relationship in constantly shifting colors as he struggles to balance his affair with thickening walls that steadily close around him. Where it leads him in into the darkest chambers of despair and to a tragedy that will forever devastate him.
Based on the book by Josephine Hart, Malle builds this sordid affair with rich and provocative imagery, as mentioned, carefully letting moments unspool with deliberate yet raw action that defines Fleming in remarkable illumination despite so few verbal exchanges. Malle keeps the sex primal, clearly establishing Fleming as a victim of his own lusts, driven by a powerful force that blurs any semblance of rational thought. The two thrash about on the floor, on furniture and over each other, the camera on their faces as each derive deep physical satisfaction neither have experience before. Naturally, it’s both uncomfortable and strangely hypnotic to watch.
Damage is an unconventional film, engrossing for its performances and distressing for its story. It’s a patient film, content to allows its characters to sit in stillness and bloom with soured petals as the poisons of their commitments to secrets ever-so-righteously lead them afoul. Movies like this are rare these days and as such should be celebrated by fans of theatrical cinema, Malle surely appreciative of the stage and its power of confined spaces to build tension. This is a harrowing love story with a darkness in its soul, one that will undoubtedly leave you exhausted in its wake.