Synopsis(from rottentomatoes):
Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is an actress at the peak of her international career who is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years earlier. Back then she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young woman who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She departs with her assistant (Kristen Stewart) to rehearse in Sils Maria, a remote region of the Alps. A young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) is to take on the role of Sigrid, and Maria finds herself on the other side of the mirror, face to face with an ambiguously charming woman who is, in essence, an unsettling reflection of herself.
The theme of the movie:
Clouds of Sils Maria is a must watch movie that tells us about the understanding of one own
self. In this movie, Maria was asked to play for the role of Helena, the role
that she thinks opposite role of Sigrid, the role that she used to play. At first
(even throughout the movie), she was reluctant to take this role as she thinks
that she can’t move on with the character of Sigrid. In fact, she still feels that
she is Sigrid.
Actually, Maria is in the state of denial. She can’t accept
the fact that she is Helena. The relationship between Maria and her assistant,
Val, resembles the relationship between Helena and Sigrid. She scares that when
she accepts Helena, she has to accept herself. She doesn’t want to feel as a
defeated woman, the woman that has been defeated by age and insecurity.
In my opinion, Val is not only working as her personal
assistant but also like her psychologist (Maria mentions earlier in the movie “from
psychology you gave me”). Therefore, she knows Maria very well and knows that
Maria doesn’t want to move on, she wants to remain young forever. This is where
she tells Maria that Maria can’t be a well-rounded artist if she still expects
to hold onto the privileges of youth. Throughout the movie, she keeps on convincing
her to accept Helena. To see Helena from different perspective, not from the
perspective that she has when she is Sigrid.
Later on in the movie we learnt that Val suddenly missing
during hiking. I think she intentionally did this to make Maria realized that disappear
not necessarily results in die but she could reinvent herself somewhere else and she wants Maria to stop depending on her.
Maria seems to accept that loss and continue living her life.
Until, during the theater rehearsal she commented the way Jo-Ann
Ellis acted and Jo-Ann Ellis didn’t agree with her point of view and she
realized that she is no longer Sigrid.
This is the moment where she is accepting her own self, she shows her maturity, the moment she knows that she is powerful and can't be defeated by age or insecurity.
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