Colette, une femme libre

This is one of the more confusing biopics I have seen. We know that shooting of the film was complete by the time of Marie Trintignant 's tragic death so I can only assume that the director, her mother, was too upset to give the editing the attention it deserved or too busy writing her emotional book about Marie.

Even with that excuse it is hard to get to grips with what should have been a fascinating story. Colette (Trintignant ) hardly appears to age during her long life and characters, such as her husband, appear and disappear from the story without explanation. It is hard to sympathize with anyone in the movie. Trintignant seems to be sleep walking through the role... perhaps as a result of her difficult private life that became all too public.

I've seen this movie (actually, part 2 only) late at night, and I found it quite touching. The story itself is not original (but then, how could a romance be?..), but the style itself, all those small gestures, nice colors, like an aquarelle. Something you'd like to look at if you are in romantic mood. Marie Trintignant played absolutely convincing. Such a pity that a real life turned out to be so ghastly for her, this makes a movie even more sad than it was supposed to be.

Also, having such a good impression after seeing only the second part of the film, I cannot be sure whether it would be the same if I'd seen it from the very beginning. Sometimes too much explanation kills the essence of the story. I know at least one other movie - namely, "Meet Joe Black", that left much better impression the first time, when I started to look a way after the prologue part.