Betty

What an unusual film and such a dark and sad place with the splendid Stephane Audran and Marie Trintignant adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon. I have never seen a couple of women drinking so much whiskey and it almost makes us ill it was so terrible. There is a lot of talking as well but there is decent dialogue and then the women and their sex and drinking as they almost die although in the end it is even worse with betrayal.

Betty is hard to understand. Not a victim, yet not a manipulator. She suffers, yet she destroys what's around her for petty motives, or not even that.

Cinematography is part of the story. Like at Berri's "Tchao pantin" (1983), Bernard Zitzermann's work enhances the story at the right time, and then releases its grip on us. When it pours rain and Betty is carried like merchandise from one tramp to another, you feel wet and desolate. The song "Je voulais te dire que je t'attends" is very effective too, I felt bad just by comparing the moving lyrics with what we were seeing, the road to nowhere.

Simenon is a love/ hate affair, I find it hard to be objective with him. I can't speak about his novels, but I can't say I like watching his cinema adaptations, they make me feel bad about everything in life after having watched them. And yet, I though they well made, atmospheric, immersing, in a sort of "descent to hell" way. I mean, it's like reading Dostoievsky but less melodramatic, and with way more sex & the facade of love as subjects.

This is a film about women. Marie Trintignat of course IS this movie. Frail, elegant, beautiful, but enigmatic, always following her own ways, in her private world where no one reaches her, it's hard to love her if one sees her objectively, but is nevertheless an alluring character. Reading her bio on IMDb is heavily interesting, it's like Claude C understood her personality, almost her "destiny", encapsulated it and gave it to us on celluloid, thus, making it last sort of forever.

Laure, on the contrary, while no angel, maybe sees in Betty some sort of projection of herself, some "lost soul to be saved", or in any case, she mothers Betty, in a non dominating way, firm when she has to, almost too perfect to be real.

Mario and Guy Etamble are characters devoid of soul, will or personality. Guy of course is dominated by the family, even when they made her sign the legal contract, it's "them", not him. Even the sister in law is there :)! So when they have to decide "what to do with her", it's a family affair, in which Guy is only one of the voices. And of course there Madame Etamble seems to be the only dominating force. Again, women are the only source of plot in this story.

A very "French" film in the use of a convoluted plot, frequent flashbacks, "originary scenes" all the time (torrid sex scenes unintended to be seen, but of course finally obvious, unless you think there is always a motif for everything, so ... :)). Psychoanalysis is a commanding force, "manifestly" in the mouth of one of Betty's lovers, the intellectual, spectacled Freud follower, but "latently" in all of this oeuvre.

dbdumonteil's review has probably the best quote on this film, by Marie T., you better read it from his review proper.

Chabrol loves to hate the bourgeoisie, so it's no news they look silly and dumb here. The "bourgeois wealth, rigid roles, invisible servants, funless family in short". Chabrol would probably put the blame of most on them, but we don't have to. Nothing new by now, no big deal, Claude :).

This is a cautionary tale in many ways, but of course you'll have to watch this movie to find out why.

PS: The storyline review by "jhailey@hotmail.com" has spoilers, can't anybody do something about it?

I am surprised, and a little dismayed, at how cold and passionless this adaptation of a Simenon book is. I haven't read Betty, but those works of Simenon I am familiar with don't make me reach for the thermostat the way Chabrol's film does. La veuve Couderc, Maigret et l'affaire St-Fiacre, Monsieur Hire, to name just three, have an engagement with life that is sorely lacking in this trifle. Why tell the story in fragmented style, à la Memento or Amores perros, when a straightforward sequential narration would do fine? Why use a character just to describe Betty's emotional states when we can guess at these from the visual evidence? Marie Trintignant conveys Betty's vapid, eager-to-please behaviour very well. Booze does blunt the emotions, increase or decrease aggression, make one sexually irresponsible just as we see on screen. Stéphane Audran as Laure drinks almost as much as Betty, but cannot forget she has feelings, is capable of compassion. Chabrol concentrates on satirizing the bourgeois family to the exclusion of practically everything else in the story.

This reminds me of a car wreck where people stop to gawk at the carnage. Betty is a lost should who has spent years using sex and booze to try to numb herself. Trapped in a loveless marriage, she once again resorts to her old habits--and is caught and thrown out without her kids but with a stipend from her rich ex.

The story begins with Betty on a date with a psychotic ex-doctor and she's becoming drunk VERY fast (I can't recall EVER seeing a character in a movie drink that many drinks so fast). When she awakens she's in the home of an older woman who has rescued her. And, slowly in flashbacks, we see Betty's story about her life--given in bits and pieces interspersed throughout the film. There were two problems with this method: first, it was, at times, pretty confusing following the action, and second, I just found myself not particularly caring about the character. She was a total mess.

It's a shame, as I have really enjoyed several other Claude Chabrol movies--this, unfortunately, isn't one of them. It only scores a 4 because the acting is good--the story sure isn't.

Chabrol's true representations of women have made him a "Le Cinéaste Des Femmes".Betty signifies a change of pace for Chabrol as after years of thrillers,he has made a quiet film.Betty is a unique tale of a troubled bourgeois woman who felt that she could drown her sorrows in alcohol. Chabrol has accurately adapted Simenon novel as everything appears in a flashback.He has made it clear that he has not created neither a psychological portrait nor a moralistic drama.Betty is a collection of sharp observations on bourgeois life.She is a victim of circumstances as destiny did not favor her.Although,her marriage was based on love it didn't succeed as she was skeptical of it from the beginning.What she really wanted was companionship.Betty and Laure share a strange friendship built on mutual trust and respect.Betty's heartrending tale confirms that no woman will ever leave her family unless something tragic happens to her.