Original subtitles

MIRROR OF LIFE

Isn't she nice, Fouquette?

That's what friends are. He looks like he's suffering.

"Mozart died at 35".

Not that I care about Mozart. I don't know why I wrote that.

I've written a lot of Lamartine here.

— You like Lamartine? — Yes.

— You write down... — Everything I like.

Everything I like.

And the 1000—franc game?

Yes. That's what I'm looking for.

I've copied them all down.

"Du Guesclin died at Chateauneuf de Randon

"No wound put an end to the exciting life

"of the famous warrior, but rather a chill.

"One very hot daY,Ju|y 13,

"he drank some very cold water from La Glaze spring

''located west of the ramparts.

"Sent to Midi PremiEre, September 17,1978."

That guy won 6,800 francs.

The presenter is laughing about it.

He took Marianne. She's won it.

Help yourselves to the biscuits.

All this is from...

stuff I've noted from the television as they speak.

We're so happy to say that.

I've nobody to talk to about this. So Ijust write it down.

I've about fifty notebooks like this.

I don't know where everything is but I write it all down.

Here. There were some old age pensioners...

I support them.

I put this grandmother in the book. I must be stupid.

See? For putting that granny there.

A person in a retirement home.

— Why did you do it? — I felt sorry for her.

Because I thought for this granny in a retirement home

it must be awful. They're really places you go to die.

Anyone who goes there knows that they're dying.

They say don't think of the past.

But the past

is all that matters, you see.

What future have I got?

A poor devil like me, like all of us.

Everyone thinks of himself. If you're ill,

then they're more ill.

They turn in on themselves.

Which means you stop talking.

There are those pining, too.

There's a lady who has a sick son.

The thing that can sometimes be depressing

is hearing nothing but complaints.

"My legs, my stomach, my head..."

How do you spend your days?

Shall I show you?

It's an apple tree bough.

But I've done better work than this.

— It's very pretty. — But there's not much embroidery.

The thing I can do best is little slippers.

Slippers, undershirts...

There are plenty of funerals!

More than births.

The manager says, "Our only births

"are pigeons!"

They've a lovely pigeon coop. Have you seen it?

It's very pretty.

Yes...

There we are.

I thought of you during the holidays.

I was monitoring you.

Did you have any visitors?

I imagine there were activities with people from outside.

How are you feeling?

I didn't go to Nimes, you know.

Lucie only writes to me, of course.

She says Iim unhappy there.

I can talk to no one about all my missing memories.

There are only people telling their misfortunes.

I feel rather neglected.

She said, "There are only old fo|k." But how old are you, Lucie?

Do you realise? 85!

Don't you realise you can't call them "old fo|k"!

She says, "There's always someone dying or falling ill

"or falling out of bed..."

You can tell that all this upsets her.

She doesn't think she's the age she is.

She knows that all this happens, but...

How can I put it?

Poor thing, she asks me: "Send me some news."

I do write letters to her

but I don't tell her: "We went here or there".

Not that I go anywhere much.

But I don't want to hurt her.

She'd say, "You're healthy, you can run,

"and I can't."

I'll only go to an old peoples’ home

when I can't do things for myself.

When I can't make

a pasta soup or light the fire...

Because that would be the end...

the end of your life.

The end of everything.

I've been a widow 57 years

and I lived with my husband for 7 years.

and I lived with my husband for 7 years.

Yes.

I couldn't remarry.

That's the way it is.

I was so happy. I was inconsolable.

He had it easier

because he didn't experience

separation or illness.

He didn't suffer.

You can be very close to a husband but also very far away.

It's hard for hearts to beat as one.

But he accepted what I was. He was a good man.

That's why I missed him.

When you're getting on, you should both go together.

The one who's left behind becomes a wreck.

You miss him. If you need to change a bulb,

you call someone.

When I wanted my coal brought up, he'd bring it up.

And this thing about not talking to anyone...

You feel you're getting older.

That's how it is.

It looks like glue, doesn't it?

I'm making a big...

Imagine, all this is being recorded.

You must be thinking she's a silly chatterbox!

"But there's nobody around to hear," I say. What are you talking for?

Blows like that hit you in the stomach.

It quickly goes, but...

it affects you, and you think: "Heavens, there's no one."

Well, it's in the past.

There's no one in La Gardette.

What's keeping me here?

My whole family's in the grave.

I've lived here since I was small. And so on.

It's 5 years

since my husband died.

So I wait.

Or I cry. That's what I do.

When you've nothing,

what else can you do?

When one goes and leaves the other,

it's not very good.

It's awful for me.

It's hard to separate.

We loved each other.

We were happy then

and now we're separated for ever.

I sometimes talk to my cat as if he were a person.

I talk, even though I'm alone.

I often ask: where have you gone my beloved?

To lose your beloved is to lose everything.

Children are fine

but they're not the same as a your beloved.

When you put on a log,

it burns and creates a glow.

It stops you pining.

It stops you pining.

— Here? — Yes, it should be about there.

Here, Cibe||e!

Here, we have nothing. This is really a poor area.

There was some activity locally 50 years ago

but now it's dying.

Some people leave

to work far away and the others are old and will disappear.

The houses will gradually be boarded up

and become second homes.

Fetch!

Come on, Cibe||e! The hunting's over.

We came home empty—handed.

We should have hunted higher up.

Before, when I was really ill, she was worried sick.

Now it's almost as if it leaves her indifferent.

I sleep in my bed next to her.

But she lies on the edge so as not to touch my legs.

Once, she was on the edge, almost falling off,

and she said, quite familiarly, "You're not my husband."

There's nothing wrong with you apart from your sight, a little.

Quite a lot.

Yes, it does bother you.

But you get used to that.

— By touch? — That's right.

The oldest woman in France

comes from Arles and drinks a glass of port every day.

I drink two,

so I should live...

She's lived to 114

so I should make it to 120!

Vlfith 2 glasses of port a day.

— You're surrounded by young people. — Only young people!

You are young in mind, too.

You're very cheerful, Zitou.

That's because I'm glad to be alive!

She's extraordinary!

That's natural, you don't need to explain it.

You don't need a reason to be glad you're alive.

Oh, here's Minouche. Here, pussy. Look...

They smelled the photos.

Have you come back, Minouche?

You're a lovely cat.

There. You may well be photographed...

— Vlfill she be on... — She already is.

She has her cats too!

You love your cats.

Naturally I love my little companions.

I'd be nothing without them.

There.

Minouche is a bad mother.

She's a good cat but a bad mother.

Do you regret not living with someone?

Ha! Not in the slightest.

It reminds me of rheumatism,

things I don't like bothering with, taking pills at midday...

The hardest time is now.

You feel you've done nothing, but that hardly matters.

I can't be the only one.

I'm just reproaching myself.

When I see you all,

I could really have made an effort

when I was young to do something. Maybe I wasn't capable,

because I was a daddy's girl, that's all.

Because I liked other things.

I liked lovely things: beauty,

flowers... I've dreamed all my life.

MY Project

was to make those living near me happy.

That made me happy.

Some go for money, others for power, with me it was love.

That's all.

Love of a man,

real love. I love men

but there are so few real men.

I'd rather die than go into an old people's home.

I'd ratherjust die and be found one morning in my bed.

I spend whole days without saying a word to anyone.

I don't know how

I'll be able to bear this year. It seems to be harder than ever.

I don't have many people around me.

And I have no activities.

I can't do it now.

I can't walk

there and back. Mrs Sisley can't take me in the car.

Because she's virtually blind. She can hardly see.

She's much more miserable than me.

I try to think of others when I feel a bit gloomy.

She can't read any more...

I can't remember what I read, but I can still read.

I watch television but there are times when it annoys me.

I do crosswords...

But you can't do crosswords all day

nor read all day.

The best thing is to have ajob.

What job? It'd be best to be 20 again!

Or if not 20, then be 20 years younger.

You watch yourself declining, losing your faculties...

and the loneliness is awful.

I was alone all my life. Iworked in Nimes.

My mother loved me

but from afar, as she was here and I was in Nimes.

I lived alone but I had friends

and I had myjob,

which filled my life.

I had to look after my mother all the time.

My father had money which he'd spend on himself.

He was a difficult so—and—so and he drank.

A drunkard isn't a man,

it's a wild animal.

My poor mother had to put up with it all.

She took the blows

and had to work to feed us because he spent his money elsewhere.

I'd have liked to marry.

Not many women

don't want to marry.

I had an unhappy love affair

and for years couldn't stand boys coming near me.

When you're young, you can't imagine how you'll be when you're old.

You can't see

how you'll turn out. It gradually creeps up on you.

It makes you gloomy to think about what you were

and what you've become.

It's really depressing.

I want to die immediately.

Be rid of my existence.

And even up to my age,

we evolve.

You can see that I listen, I talk,

I communicate...

I'm thirsty, Colinette.

Again?

This is your third, Zitou!

Not at all.

"Not at all," she says. I know, I poured them!

— I hope there's more port. — Yes.

There. Oh, the telephone.

How nice!

Yes, you are disturbing me!

Yes, really. I'll call you back later

because we're making films right now.

Oh, I'm always busy.

Will you be at home this evening?

Right. I'll call you back then.

There.

Ifl don't...

Ifl don't call her it means it's not working.

Honestly!

I can't make a simple movement without breaking my glass of port.

A maker of little boxes, they speak to me.

I make up quatrains for my boxes

to amuse myself.

Delicate work requires glasses.

You have to draw it

with a fine pencil.

Ifthe line is thick,

if you deviate from a thick pencil line,

you'll be a quarter ofa millimetre out,

which matters for closing the box.

You can make any shape you like.

But when you get too ornate, it takes longer

and you waste the time of the people watching.

There. That's for the motif.

But I don't claim to make works of art.

It passes the time, because I do it slowly.

It's not tiring.

I enjoy doing special shapes.

Like this heart shape.

I call these "Tenderness".

They're like my granddaughters.

So I make them and I fill them with friendship, as I say.

Oh, it's wonderful. I'm thrilled.

It's a real present. I so wanted one.

It's so pretty and light.

They're superb.

It's an imaginary world I like to live in.

I talk to them like granddaughters.

Some of them don't like being next to others

who are too black. Itis apartheid.

I create a little artificial world.

Some wonder what they'll contain later.

One told me she'd like to hold a blonde curl.

Another said

''I'd like to have a lovers’ vow."

''I'd like to have a lovers’ vow."

So I carefully keep a lovers’ vow

from a secret love.

Or you can put a baby's first tooth in there.

When you're pretty old,

you have few sources of delight.

So you create them artificially.

They have no real value, but in your eyes

they are valuable.

The little box is made.

Now the inside of the box must be decorated.

I have never suffered from isolation

as my memory is good.

I remember the people that I love

and I enjoy doing that. I don't think I've had

a moment of loneliness.

I only noticed I'd become an old man

after an operation when I was 93 years old.

I didn't seem to understand man had to grow old.

So I noticed I was old very late.

I never had the feeling, when I was 70,

75,80 years old, that I was an old man.

I thought of myself as being an adult.

This is my 100th year.

What I want

IS t0 return t0 the stars.

I want to have

my little star. I'd even like to know its name.

I'll ask my astronomer son to choose me one.

I don't want it to be too close to a black hole.

I said toJacky, "The simplest thing,

"since I'm Venusian, is to choose Venus."

And he said, "You're not allowed to choose that star."

And I asked why.

"Because you'll be very cold

"in the winter and too hot in summer."

I'd like anyone to be able to spot me

and say, "That's Zitou up there.

"There she is.

"Today, you can't see her, a cloud is passing.

"What a shame! We can't wish her goodnight."

My thoughts are with Rose, Lucie, Fernand, Emma, Hélene, Zitou, André

they opened the doors of age to me

And also with Violette Brunet andJacques de Latour

Subtitling — TELETOTA