Mademoiselle

This movie, most notable for its authors, Playwright Jean Genet, is a lost classic which one ups Bunuel's Diary of a Chambermaid in its portrayal of the secret twisted desires of the rural french. Jeanne Moreau stars as a teacher in a rural french village. Her secret desire for the Italian logger Manou leads her to acts of brutal destruction on the town. A brilliant story combined with luscious camera work and nearly silent but incredibly tense scenes with Jeanne Moreau lead to making this movie an absolute must see.

Dark in its commentary about human nature, 'Mademoiselle' is both artistic and disturbing. Several say that it's the frustrated sexual desire for woodman Ettore Manni that leads to Jeanne Moreau's spate of secret violence against the town, but it's worth noting that the first fire set is accidental. I think it's more horrifying to think how arbitrary sociopathic behavior may be, that it may exist in all of us, and small turns of events turn her into a monster. The malevolence in her eyes is frightening, as is her cruelty to his son in her classroom, and we see how cruelty begets cruelty, as he dashes a rabbit repeatedly against the ground after an incident with her. That's one thing to beware of in the film, there is more than one scene of what appears to be actual cruelty to animals. There is also sexual humiliation - kissing boots, crawling on the ground, and getting spit on before being kissed - in a sequence that drags on over multiple scenes far too long towards the end. The film simply tries too hard to makes its point, sometimes with silly, obvious symbolism (for example, him unwrapping his snake and having her stroke it). Director Tony Richardson, with screen writing from Marguerite Duras based on a story by Jean Genet, certainly creates an image with this film, it's just not all that pleasant. On the positive side, he does capture several wonderful shots, mostly outdoors. It's as if he saying nature is beautiful, man is not. I also loved seeing Jeanne Moreau, who is fantastic.

Few seem to understand what this film is about, which is rank misogyny. That's really all there is to it. Jeanne Moreau, an intelligent woman who admitted to craving the unconventional, was the driving force behind the project. She presumably understood the film's basic theme and went for it. Mademoiselle is sadistic, perverse, capricious, and emotionally comatose.

Based on a discarded screenplay by the sadistic homosexual Jean Genet who was on a mission to subvert normative society, and with some tweaking by others, including the doyenne of non-conformist romantic anguish, Marguerite Duras, and directed by Tony Richardson, who was himself in the closet at that time, the film's gay credentials now look obvious, though at the time the hidden meaning would have been relatively obscure and it is no surprise that viewers at the time found the meaning of the film as garbled as the various languages spoken in this French village.

In any case, it was hardly possible though to mask the sociopathic malice of the main character and the clear implication that heterosexual passion is a nasty disease - a kind of insanity - sufficient to lead, in women, to bestial submission and the destruction of men, and, in men, to, well, at least a terrible waste of resources (from a gay point of view).

The static, wide-angle compositions are a thing of beauty though and are worth watching for their own sake. The technique goes some way to represent Mademoiselle's placid detachment from normality, and serves to mask the obviousness of the message - without it, the film would have been too blatant for its own good. Unfortunately, coupled with misogyny theme, the catatonic presentation turns the story into a dreary and rather unpleasant slog.

Yes, poisonous is the main word that comes to my mind where I watch this British movie made in France in the new British cinema manner, as Jack Clayton's THE INNOCENTS was a couple of years earlier. The two stories are obviously different, but the atmosphere so close to each other. Listen to the noise of the surroundings, it is a very poisonous atmosphere, very...I can't find the adequate, accurate words. if you have also seen THE INNOCENTS, a - I repeat - very different topic, you will notice although some similarities between the two. Just notice the birds song among the trees, at night, in the right middle of this fascinating, atmospheric and sooo disturbing tale. And certainly not a fairy tale. Far from that. Jeanne Moreau at her peak. But she always was at her peak.

In a small provincial village things occur, that has the occupants distressed, visibly stirred, as the floodgates are wound open, fires lit then lives are broken, beasts fall dead, leaving a vastly reduced herd. Tongues start to wag about the culprit and his reasons, the Italian who appears in summer seasons, foreigners not welcome here, we should make him disappear, but the constables maintain the laws cohesion. In the background out of sight and out of mind, there's a villain, who's quite the opposite of kind, presents herself as a school teacher, but deep down she has some features, that give her kicks, when those around her are maligned.

Left me thinking just how many people, who present as if butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, are actually nasty, conniving and sociopathic nutters. Jeanne Moreau performs the role with aplomb although I'm not sure this was a film that delivers quite as much as some of her other roles.