Seeing and Knowing STORY AND PLOT IN 5×2

5×2 is an appropriate text for senior secondary students, and may relate to learning outcomes in Media Arts and French, as well as the Respectful Relationships learning area. It is recommended that teachers watch the film beforehand to gauge its appropriateness for use as a classroom resource. Schools are also advised that 5×2 is classified MA 15+, and that it contains sex scenes and a scene of sexual violence. The film has a running time of ninety minutes, and is in French. It is available on DVD with English subtitles internationally through Image Entertainment, and has previously been distributed in Australia by Dendy.

François Ozon’s (2004) gives away its structure in its title: through five sections, the film explores a couple’s failed marriage. These five moments in the shared life of Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) and Gilles (Stéphane Freiss) move backwards in time, from the first section, in which the two protagonists sign their divorce papers, to the last one, which shows the blossoming of their romantic relationship. By turning further and further into the couple’s past, creates an expectation that new light will be shed on the specifics of Marion and Gilles’ relationship, and that, ultimately, viewers will come to understand why their marriage ends in divorce. Film scholar Lee Carruthers notes that, when audiences engage with a text in which the conclusion is already known, they are likely to be operating under the belief that ‘the dilemmas of the present may be clarified with recourse to the past because they find their roots there’; nonetheless, she argues that this assumption is