Um Amor Tão Frágil

What can I say about this movie? It reduced me to tears in 1977, and again in 2003. It doesn't stand up to over analysis, but it rings so absolutely true... which has given the film it's resonance down the years. Isabelle Huppert's performance is sublime, and the last scene one of the most heartbreaking in cinema.

Class differences are extremely detrimental to human relationships especially to relationships which involve love between a man and a woman.However hard one may try,one cannot really get rid of class differences in daily lives.Swiss film 'The Lacemaker' is sincere in its depiction of a tender love affair which was bound to fail from its inception.Based on a Goncourt prize winning novel by Pascal Lainé, 'La Dentellière' reveals actress Isabelle Huppert in one of the most sensible roles of her acting career.It is with great confidence and ease that she plays the role of a shy woman who is not too enthusiastic about getting into relationships with men.However,a chance meeting with an intelligent boy changes her life for good.La Dentellière succeeds as it depicts how vulnerable some women can be.It is neither anti women nor pro men but it has something for intelligent viewers who would like to be impartial judges of male female relationships.Those who have deep knowledge of French cinema would not fail in recognizing young actress Sabine Azéma playing a minor role.

I understand that this is the film that brought Isabelle Huppert, already the accomplished veteran of over 20 films and yet just 22-years-old, to the forefront of the French cinema. It is not hard to see why. She is apple sweet in her red hair and freckles and her pretty face and her cute little figure playing Pomme, a Parisian apprentice hairdresser. She is shy about sex and modest--just an ordinary French girl who hopes one day to be a beautician. Along comes François (Yves Beneyton) a tall, handsome, young intellectual from a petite bourgeois family who sweeps her off her feet.

They set up housekeeping and eventually he gets around to introducing her to his family. Alas, Mom finds the girl "decent," and ...well, it's rather predictable. You should watch. I've seen the story a number of times, and I find it rather painful, especially because in this case Huppert is so incredibly sweet and adorable. It is a naturalistic love story, like something from a nineteenth century novel, sad, compelling, bittersweet and ultimately tragic in an all too familiar way.

Claude Goretta's direction is lean and finely cut, and he does a great job with Huppert. There are moments of pure genius, especially the stunning final shot in which Pomme suddenly turns to the camera, on her face a vaguely hopeful, enigmatic expression. It lingers just long enough so that we realize this really is the end, and the lights are about to come up. The shot is especially effective because we can see the posters from Greece on the walls that reveal that what she just told François was a kind of proud make-believe story. Also very well done without undue emphasis is the scene where Pomme goes to him at the window in their apartment, presenting herself to him, so to speak, her naked little self so vulnerable, and he is not interested. Nothing more need to be said. It is like the turn in a sonnet: everything changes.

Without the beguiling child-like, but deeply experienced and finely expressed performance by Mademoiselle Huppert, this film would still be good, but nothing special. She carries the film: her timing, her intense concentration, her sense of who she is and how she feels at every moment is just perfect. She is exquisite.

For those of you familiar with the work of Isabelle Huppert, this is a film not to be missed.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Beatrice is a very reserved and quiet young woman. Her friend Marylene is left by her lover and brings her to Cabourg (Normandy) for a few days' vacation. There, Beatrice, an apprentice hairdresser, meets Francois, a middle-class intellectual. Francois becomes her first lover, but their social and cultural differences get in the way of happiness.

This film is highly praised and indeed it is a pretty good film. Not my favorite, not one I am likely to recommend to others, but a fine film just the same. What I liked most is that the movie says it is okay to be an introvert, to be a wallflower, to be a loner. Other movies might have a shy kid breaking out of their shell, but here we have Beatrice who knows who she is and is (for the most part) very comfortable about it.

This film is about class, pure and simple. The shy Hubert comes from a lower class than her male lover. He can't accept her because she's not an intellectual like he is. He can't appreciate her quiet beauty because it is a nonverbal beauty, and he lives in a world of words and books.

Hubert's performance is wonderful.