Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
An artist and a photographer, married for thirty years, contemplate what they have left.
Scenes from a marriage
Image courtesy of Modern Films.
It was Ingmar Bergman who made a film entitled Scenes from a Marriage which title also offers a perfect description of this new piece by Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet. That is so despite the Bergman work being an enacted drama and Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other being a documentary. The focus here is on the marriage of Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barrett, he American and she British, who met in 1990 and went on to establish a deep bond which still continues to this day. But, if their love for each other is undoubted, their relationship has not been without problems and the most memorable scene in this film is one in which Maggie lets out her pent-up resentment which exists alongside their shared rapport.
Made over the last year or two, the footage largely finds the couple in one or other of the properties that had for some years been their homes, one being an apartment in New York and the other a farmhouse in Tuscany. Late on we also see Cornwall but not North London where they now have a flat. Although Joel is 87, he still continues to work having built up a notable reputation as a photographer (his work is currently on display at London’s Tate Modern) while Maggie at 78 has found her artistic expression through writing and painting. However, it is not their art but their relationship which is the central focus here and the most valuable aspect of the film lies in its clear portrayal of the issues that can arise from living together especially when love coexists with something deeply embedded that could threaten it. Petty irritations and misunderstandings are common enough but, even if it may be an undue simplification to stress it too much, what explains the tension here is largely the fact that Joel's work is immensely acclaimed and puts him in the spotlight whereas Maggie's attempt at novel-writing led to massive rejections and even her painting, which has been more successful, underlines the imbalance in how the couple’s achievements are perceived.
The willingness of the couple to be seen in this light makes this a potentially striking film but I feel that the approach adopted by the directors is misjudged. The first few minutes introduce us to Joel and Maggie and sensibly enough Perlmutter and Ouimet recognise that some viewers will be unaware of them and need some background information. To provide this, each of them is featured looking back and referencing events before they met in September 1990. From this we learn that at the time Maggie had already experienced four failed marriages, had given birth to a stillborn daughter, had once suffered a broken neck and had trained to be a therapist. As for Joel, he too had been involved in a marriage that went awry but had fathered two children. Heard before they are seen, Joel and Maggie are then presented in a way which repeatedly intercuts what they are telling us and this done at speed makes it less easy to take in. Simultaneously the shots of them are chosen and angled so as to emphasise that they are two individuals rather than a unit. This implication that each is in his or her own world may be intended to point to the theme of marriage involving an accommodation that even a loving couple may find it hard to manage but, whatever its purpose, it makes for a slightly off-putting preface.
Thereafter we have a film of the couple’s lives based on hours and hours of footage cut down to 100 minutes but excluding interviews with them or others and at times incorporating short scenes that serve no very clear purpose. Nevertheless, what we see appears in chronological order and, being articulate people, the talk between Joel and Maggie is insightful. There is plenty said here that one can relate to: that includes comments on the age difference becoming more of a factor as they get older, concern over Maggie being held back by Joel being less equipped in his eighties to do what they might wish to do (a situation ironically transposed when Maggie breaks a femur and then suffers osteoporosis) and thoughts on whether or not Maggie would hope to die first.
But, if that opening segment feels less than ideal, the real problem with Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other lies in the character of its images. The value of the piece lies in its raw authenticity be it the painful treatment that Maggie endures when recuperating or the lashing outburst against Joel and her role in their shared lives which provides the film’s startling climax but not its conclusion. Yet throughout the film what immediately takes the eye is the look of the piece. It is superbly photographed in colour and wide screen by Jacob Perlmutter himself and, more than that, there is not a single image that is not beautifully composed. Normally that would be a virtue, but here it suggests artifice so persistently present that it undercuts the sense of authenticity on which the power of the film depends. I do not for a moment suggest that the words are other than the valid comments of Joel and Maggie, but the art applied here imposes a sense of artificiality nevertheless.
The film also leaves one curious about the motives of Joel and Maggie in agreeing to be filmed in this way. Did they have any idea when the shoot started how disconcerting and disturbing parts of it would prove to be? While they have not censored these aspects what do they feel about the finished work? Does the fact that any imbalance in their relationship is now replaced on screen by a work in which they are equals provide a reason that may have influenced the decision to do it in the first place? It would have been a real gain for the film had such questions emerged directly in it rather than leaving us to surmise. It’s certainly an interesting and offbeat example of documentary cinema and for some its self-conscious visual artistry may not impede their involvement in it but it certainly did so for me.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Maggie Barrett, Joel Meyerowitz, Brenda Bufalino, Denise Wolff, Sarah Meister.
Dir Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet, Pro Manon Ouimet, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Jacob Perlmutter, Ph Jacob Perlmutter, Ed Estephan Wagner and Josh Mallalieu, Music Diogo Strausz.
Manon et Jacob/Final Cut for Real-Modern Films.
100 mins. UK/Denmark/USA/Sweden. 2024. UK Rel: 21 March 2025. Cert. 15.
