La flambeuse

La Flambeuse is a bitter and pleasant,average sketch of manners, remarkable for two performances,that of Mrs. Massari and that of Blain. Mrs. Massari acts exquisitely,very restrained and sober;she is delightful to watch.As a good-looker,Mrs. Massari gives the movie a certain sexual thrill.Her performance is flawless,fine and natural: restrained, economical,dignified,lucid,minimalist--electrifying.Her character ("Louise")is agreeable and seducing.La Flambeuse is a well-made portrait of a woman.

Blain does also a very good role:a husband as repugnant and disgusting as he should be.The viewer is urged to take an emotional stand:sympathy towards "Louise",and dislike for the sticky,mollusk husband of hers.

The movie is certainly interesting and worth watching,and a bit too long;the story is somehow pointless,watery and not too clever.The bistro scenes are friendly and amusing.

The main interest of this movie is its cast: Lea Massari was one of the best Italian actresses. She's retired now and has become a painter. Gérard Blain (who passed away in 2000),like her,worked in Italy and in his native country where he became a too neglected director (8 movies and one MTV one,most of them highly commendable) .As for the late Laurent Terzieff , he became rarer and rarer on the screens along the years ,it seems that his ambitious acting would scare the directors .

The three actors are better than the parts they were given ; Massari is the bourgeois boheme who feels stifled in her milieu where she's got nothing to do : her husband is an architect (whose ideas are baroque and thus finally declined ) she's a got a domestic help ; she tries to paint but her artistic time is short-lived ;in a small popular bistro where underdogs wind up , gambling (dice, cards) is the main interest of these people -but the depiction of this milieu is caricatured- and soon she learns to play poker ; slowly by inexorably ,she's plagued by the gambling fever ;it takes all Massari's talent to make us believe in this rich but frail bourgeois woman who little by little gets out of her depth in a world she didn't know before.

Laurent Terzieff is wasted in a tailor-made predictable part:he was par excellence the fallen aristocrat and he makes the best of a badly written part ;Gerard Blain,on the other hand , is cast against type :his rebellious side is displayed when he talks about the de rigueur May 68 ; sonny follows suit when he tells the cleaning lady his parents exploit her. By 1981 -the film was released exactly at the time the socialists rose to power in France - , these revolutionary vague desires were pure clichés.

Watch it because of the reunion of three great actors,but do not expect too much.