Les dames du Bois de Boulogne

Very good movie by Robert Bresson. After two years with Jean, Hélène tells him that she's not in love with him like at the beginning and that the love that she still have for him is fading away. What a surprise and a sense of betrayal when Jean tells Hélène that he was feeling the same way. So, as a revenge, Hélène manage to get Jean and Agnès together. Agnès is an ex-dancer from the Bois de Boulogne. Without knowing her past, Jean will marry her. Then, when he discovers the secret, he's got a choice, leave or prove his love for Agnès.

Very well done. The cinematography is very good, so is the acting.

Out of 100, I gave it 80.

This is Robert Bresson's most stylish, and possibly his most romantic movie; it is an elegant and refined drama of jealousy and revenge. It is full of wonderful details, such as the scene of Elina Labourdette's night club act, or the wonderful moment later in the film where she bursts into dance because of her boredom with her confinement. Maria Casares's performance is in the grand tradition: no one can show steely determination and erotic frustration better. This is Bresson's first masterpiece, and was a failure upon release, but has come to be regarded as one of the great films in French film history.

A society lady (Maria Casarès) engineers a marriage between her lover (Paul Bernard) and a cabaret dancer (Élina Labourdette) who is essentially a prostitute.

Not to say the acting isn't great or the direction isn't wonderful... because they both are. But this really comes down to a great script. This is the sort of bait and switch comedy that the French were great at. Diderot, Voltaire, Beaumarchais... there is a music to their writing that I have never found in any other nation's literature.

This translates fairly well to the screen, and is a great farce about social standing and romance. Now, whether Agnes is a prostitute or not, I don't know. Although she clearly was in the original story, some say she is not in the film. Regardless, the humor of the comedy remains the same.

Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) was written and directed by Robert Bresson. This movie is the second feature film by the great French director Bresson. It's the last film in which he used professional actors.

In a story somewhat reminiscent of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, two wealthy, sophisticated lovers have a parting of the ways. Hélène, played by María Casares, senses that Jean (Paul Bernard) is losing interest in her. She suggests that they separate, and he agrees. The problem is that he agrees too readily. Hélène feigns indifference, but she plots revenge.

The weapon of revenge is Agnès, played by Elina Labourdette. Agnès is a young cabaret dancer and (we understand) a prostitute. This is an ingénue role, and it's clear that Agnès is a serious dancer, forced into this role in order to support herself and her mother. The remainder of the story depicts the way the elaborate revenge scheme involving Agnès is carried out.

Labourdette and Bernard are fine actors, and both had long careers in French cinema. However, the success of the movie comes from the extraordinary appearance and acting skills of María Casares. Casares, although Spanish, had an extremely successful career on both the French stage and screen. With her lithe figure and elegant clothing, she is every inch the French socialite. She is not beautiful in a typical cinematic way. Instead, with her triangular, almost feline face, and her narrowed eyes, she is fascinating. She dominates every scene in which she appears. No one questions her motive for revenge and her ability to achieve it. Bresson directs the film--and Casares--with the hand of a master.

We saw this movie on the large screen at the excellent Dryden Theatre at Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The person who introduced the film said it was the only print in the United States at present. This print is owned by the French government, and only lent to selected institutions. A DVD is available, but may be of a somewhat different version. Still, even if the DVD isn't an ideal substitute for the print version, it's worth obtaining and seeing. This is one of the great films of French cinema. Don't miss it!

In Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (or The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne), we see a society woman Helene played with icy and curiously subtle perfection by María Casares (notice the colorful hats and little white dog and servant) get her form of revenge on an ex-lover (or would-be lover) by having him fall for another woman, a sort of wonderful dancer but more "street" type named Agnes (also very wonderful Elina Labourdette). He doesn't know about her past, since she and her guardian of sorts Mme. D have moved out of their previous dingy place of living, and she can't stand him falling for her since, frankly, she starts to fall in love with him too. What to do? Marriage of course, with some results that on the surface look right out of a TV soap opera.

Which, perhaps, is part of the point. A Hollywood director could make a tawdry melodrama out of the ingredients present here, but the director Robert Bresson is interested in other things, what makes the passions of these characters tic themselves. We see letters written (sometimes with the "help" of another in a conniving way), glances turn into loving stares, significant little things like the lending of an umbrella or the presence of new flowers, the drop of a glass during dinner from minor shock or dismay. At the same time Bresson doesn't let us think these people shouldn't be together, making the eventual dastardly twist make it even harder but even more necessary for Agnes and Jean to be together. Or to try.

Some may be thrown off slightly, as I was, by Bresson's direction here having seen his later, more famous works like his masterpiece A Man Escaped and near-great films (or arguably just the best there is) like Au hasard Balthazar and Pickpocket and how much more restrained and 'stone-cold' emotionally one might say compared to this film. If he hadn't gone his own way with Diary of a Country Priest, Bresson could have gone the way of a more conventional career on the basis of this project, which features some more conventional touches like in the editing, or in allowing for certain moments of incredible and even sensual joy like when Agnes dances. But it's the small touches, and certain traits in the performances that he's able to bring out of his actors, that do mark it as a Robert Bresson picture. And if anything having such a tug-of-war of what is love, what is it to fall for someone dearly in the face of a trick or whatever or cynicism benefits from having somewhat more conventional emotional scenes than the drained sorrow of Balthazar.

Not to mention having Jean Cocteau writing the dialog, which is such an added bonus that it must not be dismissed. Here we see Cocteau's mark by way of the dialog being very rich in getting to the heart of the matter in almost every scene but seamlessly still adhering to Bresson's scenario. One might say it's very "French" in the romantic sense, but why carp? It is a film with three big French names in the writing credits (Diderot, a famous novelist also responsible for The Nun, has a credit as well), and as far as French romance films of the period go it's so deeply affecting that I would say it's mandatory for someone following films of the 1940s from the country. It's about what may or may not be futile in the ways of the heart, or in the worse ways of the heart, and what surpasses society by two people just connecting with each other. A+