A Condenada

As a movie buff, when I saw this film, I thought of course about John Cromwell's CAGED starring Eeaonor Parker and Lewis Seiler's WOMEN'S PRISON starring Ida Lupino, both made in the fifties. And believe it or not, this movie is not so bad compared to those two masterpieces. I will even say that's the best French prison film since LE TROU, made by Jacques Becker in 1959. A movie starring Philippe Leroy, whom the name is used here as the Sophie Marceau's character's husband. A character we don't see at all. Hmmm...Is it a pure coincidence or a tribute to the Jacques Becker's movie? Anyway, this film is powerful at the most, outstanding and pulled by brilliant performances. And, above all, everything here is unexpected. Everything is a surprise. Nothing is foreseeable. No clichés in this terrific prison tale, a women's prison tale. Sophie Marceau is now 53 years old and has a nineteen years old girl body, the same one she had in LA BOUM, back in 1981. She also confessed that she has not prepared her character for this movie by visiting inmates in a prison. And that makes her performance even more awesome. Not for sissies, because this is really a brutal feature, even more hard to watch than most men's prison films.