When a Potiche Ascends the Stairs: Brizé’s Winning, Textured de Maupassant Adaptation
Although cinematic adaptations of French writer Guy de Maupassant still occur with some regularity, few contemporary Gallic auteurs have successfully tackled the naturalist who was a protégé of Flaubert and a contemporary of Zola. Frequent adaptations of his famed short story “Boule de Suif” and Bel-Ami are resurrected regularly, and his stories have inspired auteurs like Robert Wise, Jean-Luc Godard, Marcel Ophüls, and Jean Renoir. However, de Maupassant’s seminal first novel, Une Vie (1883), has been adapted several times outside of France, while previously its most definitive mounting was the 1958 End of Desire headlined by Maria Schell.
For his seventh feature, Stephane Brizé persuasively reflects the subjugation of women’s agency with the fragmented A Woman’s Life, and is perhaps the most auspicious transformation of the author since the handsome productions of the 1950s with this astute period piece featuring an exquisite ensemble of character actors.
After returning from convent school, Jeanne (Judith Chemla) takes joy in assisting her father (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) in the garden and perambulating with her mother (Yolande Moreau), a woman who spends most of her free time scrolling through the contents of letters she received throughout her life. With only the young family maid Rosalie (Nina Meurisse) as a friend and confidante, Jeanne soon finds herself courted by the handsome Viscount Julien de Lamare (Swann Arlaud). Swept into what she’s made to believe is romance, the marriage soon sours when Rosalie is found to be with child after having been raped by Julien. Thus begins Jeanne’s initiation into a world more harrowing than she had anticipated as her ideals and dignity are slowly stripped away.
Judith Chemla, who has starred as a supporting player in a number of period productions for noted auteurs (Tavernier, Techine) comes to the fore as the passive, frustrated center of Brizé’s film. Oblivious to the tendencies and behaviors of those around her, A Woman’s Life gently ushers her from a frivolous young woman of privilege to an increasingly fraught wife forced to contend with a debauched husband.
Brizé’s film has all the potential of a tawdry soap opera, and yet is distilled into fragmented reflections of her escapist tendencies. As we rush through defining moments of her life, time slows as Jeanne disappears into the bright, sunshiny memories which brought her to such a brooding standstill. Chemla is tasked with revealing Jeanne’s persona through inscrutable moments, an object acted upon despite meager efforts to gain control of her life. When escape presents itself upon learning of her own pregnancy at the same time as her husband’s philandering with Rosalie, her own mother confirms her fate by forcing Jeanne to forgive rather than return home.
Yolande Moreau gives a subversively droll performance as a cold maternal figure who has several major secrets of her own. As her counterpart, Jean-Pierre Darroussin nearly disappears within the period garb as Jeanne’s mild mannered father, while a mousy Swann Arlaud is sufficiently unpalatable as her cheating husband. Clotilde Hesme surfaces in a brief subplot which yields shockingly violent results, while rising young actor Finnegan Oldfield (Nocturama; Les Cowboys) shows up in the third act as Jeanne’s selfish teenage son, the specter haunting her golden years and sending her into protracted anguish.
Much like Brizé’s last lauded feature, 2015’s The Measure of a Man, the narrative revolves around distilled, refracted moments informing its protagonist’s mind frame, a person once again trapped by economic necessity in an unfavorable role which whittles away at their resolve.
Collaborating once more with scribe Florence Vignon (who scripted his superb 2009 film Mademoiselle Chambon), they achieve a striking portrait of a woman of certain means as equally weighted down by her expectations and limited control. Brizé also taps Dp Antoine Heberle (who worked on Chambon and A Few Hours of Spring, as well as Ozon’s Under the Sand) who transforms the film into a constant visual juxtaposition of stark, contrasting palettes, ranging from the brooding grays of Jeanne’s present to the golden, sparkling vivaciousness of happy times she can never return to. With stunning finality, a drastic situation boils down to bittersweet reality— “Life is never as good or as bad as you think it is.”
★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
The post A Woman’s Life | Review appeared first on Ioncinema.com.
Although cinematic adaptations of French writer Guy de Maupassant still occur with some regularity, few contemporary Gallic auteurs have successfully tackled the naturalist who was a protégé of Flaubert and a contemporary of Zola. Frequent adaptations of his famed short story “Boule de Suif” and Bel-Ami are resurrected regularly, and his stories have inspired auteurs like Robert Wise, Jean-Luc Godard, Marcel Ophüls, and Jean Renoir. However, de Maupassant’s seminal first novel, Une Vie (1883), has been adapted several times outside of France, while previously its most definitive mounting was the 1958 End of Desire headlined by Maria Schell.
For his seventh feature, Stephane Brizé persuasively reflects the subjugation of women’s agency with the fragmented A Woman’s Life, and is perhaps the most auspicious transformation of the author since the handsome productions of the 1950s with this astute period piece featuring an exquisite ensemble of character actors.
After returning from convent school, Jeanne (Judith Chemla) takes joy in assisting her father (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) in the garden and perambulating with her mother (Yolande Moreau), a woman who spends most of her free time scrolling through the contents of letters she received throughout her life. With only the young family maid Rosalie (Nina Meurisse) as a friend and confidante, Jeanne soon finds herself courted by the handsome Viscount Julien de Lamare (Swann Arlaud). Swept into what she’s made to believe is romance, the marriage soon sours when Rosalie is found to be with child after having been raped by Julien. Thus begins Jeanne’s initiation into a world more harrowing than she had anticipated as her ideals and dignity are slowly stripped away.
Judith Chemla, who has starred as a supporting player in a number of period productions for noted auteurs (Tavernier, Techine) comes to the fore as the passive, frustrated center of Brizé’s film. Oblivious to the tendencies and behaviors of those around her, A Woman’s Life gently ushers her from a frivolous young woman of privilege to an increasingly fraught wife forced to contend with a debauched husband.
Brizé’s film has all the potential of a tawdry soap opera, and yet is distilled into fragmented reflections of her escapist tendencies. As we rush through defining moments of her life, time slows as Jeanne disappears into the bright, sunshiny memories which brought her to such a brooding standstill. Chemla is tasked with revealing Jeanne’s persona through inscrutable moments, an object acted upon despite meager efforts to gain control of her life. When escape presents itself upon learning of her own pregnancy at the same time as her husband’s philandering with Rosalie, her own mother confirms her fate by forcing Jeanne to forgive rather than return home.
Yolande Moreau gives a subversively droll performance as a cold maternal figure who has several major secrets of her own. As her counterpart, Jean-Pierre Darroussin nearly disappears within the period garb as Jeanne’s mild mannered father, while a mousy Swann Arlaud is sufficiently unpalatable as her cheating husband. Clotilde Hesme surfaces in a brief subplot which yields shockingly violent results, while rising young actor Finnegan Oldfield (Nocturama; Les Cowboys) shows up in the third act as Jeanne’s selfish teenage son, the specter haunting her golden years and sending her into protracted anguish.
Much like Brizé’s last lauded feature, 2015’s The Measure of a Man, the narrative revolves around distilled, refracted moments informing its protagonist’s mind frame, a person once again trapped by economic necessity in an unfavorable role which whittles away at their resolve.
Collaborating once more with scribe Florence Vignon (who scripted his superb 2009 film Mademoiselle Chambon), they achieve a striking portrait of a woman of certain means as equally weighted down by her expectations and limited control. Brizé also taps Dp Antoine Heberle (who worked on Chambon and A Few Hours of Spring, as well as Ozon’s Under the Sand) who transforms the film into a constant visual juxtaposition of stark, contrasting palettes, ranging from the brooding grays of Jeanne’s present to the golden, sparkling vivaciousness of happy times she can never return to. With stunning finality, a drastic situation boils down to bittersweet reality— “Life is never as good or as bad as you think it is.”
★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
The post A Woman’s Life | Review appeared first on Ioncinema.com.
- 5/5/2017
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
After his César- and Cannes-winning drama The Measure of a Man finally landed in U.S. theaters just a few months ago, director Stéphane Brizé is back with a new feature. A Woman’s Life (translated from Une Vie) is an adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant novel which tracks the turbulent life of a woman in the 19th century. The first trailer has now arrived, which shows of the gorgeous cinematography in 1.33:1 ratio. While it’s set for a release in France this November, hopefully it gets the attention of U.S. distributors.
We said in our review, “Misery is constant and humor is fleeting in the world of A Woman’s Life (Une Vie), an emotionally overcast period drama from French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man). Shot in square-shaped academy ratio, it recalls — in a certain aesthetic and thematic light — the Danish Dogme films of the mid ‘90s,...
We said in our review, “Misery is constant and humor is fleeting in the world of A Woman’s Life (Une Vie), an emotionally overcast period drama from French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man). Shot in square-shaped academy ratio, it recalls — in a certain aesthetic and thematic light — the Danish Dogme films of the mid ‘90s,...
- 9/27/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Misery is constant and humor is fleeting in the world of A Woman’s Life (Une Vie), an emotionally overcast period drama from French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man). Shot in square-shaped academy ratio, it recalls — in a certain aesthetic and thematic light — the Danish Dogme films of the mid ‘90s, but without the pitch-black misanthropic wit that made that collective famous. Based on Guy de Maupassant’s 1883 novel of the same name (Tolstoy apparently loved it), it follows the endlessly unfortunate life of Jeanne Le Perthuis des Vaud, heiress to the fortune of a wealthy farming family in France in the 19th Century.
Judith Chemla stars as our doomed heroine, at first a wistful young pixie living in the family château who spends her days frolicking around and contemplating rain and skies and the like. Her blissful bourgeois existence is rocked, however, when she is wed...
Judith Chemla stars as our doomed heroine, at first a wistful young pixie living in the family château who spends her days frolicking around and contemplating rain and skies and the like. Her blissful bourgeois existence is rocked, however, when she is wed...
- 9/6/2016
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Company to launch black comedy - also starring Gerard Depardieu and Romain Duris - at Rendez-vous with French Cinema; Stéphane Brizé, Gael Garcia Bernal titles also on slate.
MK2 Films has acquired sales of Serge Bozon’s black comedy Mrs. Hyde, starring Isabelle Huppert in a role inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 19th century classic The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Gerard Depardieu and Romain Duris will also star.
Huppert is set to play a timid physics high school teacher, despised by her pupils and colleagues alike, whose life is changed forever after she is struck by lightning and wakes up with powerful and dangerous new capabilities.
“We are thrilled to represent this extraordinary new voice in French cinema that Serge Bozon has embodied since he began making films,” said MK2.
“We anticipate that, with this adaptation of a world-renowned story and simply the best possible French actors, he will be...
MK2 Films has acquired sales of Serge Bozon’s black comedy Mrs. Hyde, starring Isabelle Huppert in a role inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 19th century classic The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Gerard Depardieu and Romain Duris will also star.
Huppert is set to play a timid physics high school teacher, despised by her pupils and colleagues alike, whose life is changed forever after she is struck by lightning and wakes up with powerful and dangerous new capabilities.
“We are thrilled to represent this extraordinary new voice in French cinema that Serge Bozon has embodied since he began making films,” said MK2.
“We anticipate that, with this adaptation of a world-renowned story and simply the best possible French actors, he will be...
- 1/13/2016
- ScreenDaily
Une Vie
Director: Stéphane Brizé
Writers: Stéphane Brizé, Florence Vignon
Following his critically acclaimed The Measure of Man, which took home a Best Actor award for Vincent Lacoste at 2015, Stéphane Brizé has quickly moved onto his next project, an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant with Une Vie (One Life). Once again, Brizé re-teams with co-writer Vignon (Mademoiselle Chambon, A Few Hours of Spring) to adapt a tale centered on a hypersensitive woman unaccustomed the world’ cruelty. In essence, this sounds quite similar to Measure, but from a feminine perspective. Brizé often fleshes out characters and scenarios set within the confines of the working class, often to very eloquent effect. While Lacoste (who has starred in his last three features) is not returning this time, Brizé casts notables such as Yolande Moreau, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Jalil Lespert.
Cast: Yolande Moreau, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Jalil Lespert
Production Co./Producers:Ts Productions’ Milena Poylo and Gilles Sacuto,...
Director: Stéphane Brizé
Writers: Stéphane Brizé, Florence Vignon
Following his critically acclaimed The Measure of Man, which took home a Best Actor award for Vincent Lacoste at 2015, Stéphane Brizé has quickly moved onto his next project, an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant with Une Vie (One Life). Once again, Brizé re-teams with co-writer Vignon (Mademoiselle Chambon, A Few Hours of Spring) to adapt a tale centered on a hypersensitive woman unaccustomed the world’ cruelty. In essence, this sounds quite similar to Measure, but from a feminine perspective. Brizé often fleshes out characters and scenarios set within the confines of the working class, often to very eloquent effect. While Lacoste (who has starred in his last three features) is not returning this time, Brizé casts notables such as Yolande Moreau, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Jalil Lespert.
Cast: Yolande Moreau, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Jalil Lespert
Production Co./Producers:Ts Productions’ Milena Poylo and Gilles Sacuto,...
- 1/12/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Adieu au langage - Goodbye to Language
A Works Cited
Introduction
From its bluntly political opening (Alfredo Bandelli's 'La caccia alle streghe': "Always united we win, long live the revolution!") to its hilarious fecal humor and word play—with 3D staging that happily puts to shame James Cameron and every other hack who's tried their hand at it these past several years—Adieu au langage overwhelms us with a deluge of recited texts, music and images, hardly ever bothering to slow down to let us catch our breath. Exhilarating and certainly not surprising—this is the guy who made Puissance de la parole after all!
The release of a new Godard film or video means a new encounter with texts, films and music often familiar from the filmmaker's earlier work—reworked and re-contextualized—as well as new discoveries to be sorted through and identified. This life-long interest in quotation...
A Works Cited
Introduction
From its bluntly political opening (Alfredo Bandelli's 'La caccia alle streghe': "Always united we win, long live the revolution!") to its hilarious fecal humor and word play—with 3D staging that happily puts to shame James Cameron and every other hack who's tried their hand at it these past several years—Adieu au langage overwhelms us with a deluge of recited texts, music and images, hardly ever bothering to slow down to let us catch our breath. Exhilarating and certainly not surprising—this is the guy who made Puissance de la parole after all!
The release of a new Godard film or video means a new encounter with texts, films and music often familiar from the filmmaker's earlier work—reworked and re-contextualized—as well as new discoveries to be sorted through and identified. This life-long interest in quotation...
- 10/16/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
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