La veuve de Saint-Pierre

The ancient Greeks, gifted with an abstract way of thinking that was always trying to come down to earth and clothe itself with the commonplace occurrences of everyday life, did not have one all-embracing term for love, a we do, but broke it down into four types: affection (storge), friendship (phileo), sex (eros) and charity (agapao). And probably not since the ancient Greeks has a love story come along which not only divides love into its four types, but also weaves them, with enormous skill, into a single story. The Widow of Saint-Pierre is a love story of the tragic Greek proportions. It's an enormously beautiful movie, a story that gains power with every viewing. And for that reason, it's one of the most remarkable videos I've seen in a very long time.

We've all seen a plethora of films from Hollywood, which basically confine love, and the act of love, to eros. We all know the well-worn script. But what would it look like to view a film in which a relationship expresses all four types of love, and throbbing full force? I would be giving too much away if I were to tell you how these four types of love are rolled up so tightly into a single relationship, but that's exactly what we seen in the liaison between Jean, the Captain (Auteuil) and his wife, Pauline (Binoche). It's intensely interesting, because the performances are pitch-perfect. Even the cowardly bureaucrats, who feel threatened by the captain and his wife, are a picture of cowardly perfection. Their motives are all too human, all too real. But so is the unfathomable love they don't understand, and fear.

One of the things I really appreciate about this film is the way it expresses all forms of love as having boundaries. Jean and Pauline are not clinging vines. What we see is a mature, healthy relationship, each partner respecting the unique characteristics of the other. What a contrast to the infantile clinging vine romances out of Hollywood!

The actions of two men on a drunken spree turns out to be fatal for the man who is being harassed because he dies as a consequence of a fight with his two tormentors. Both men are apprehended and condemned to die as punishment for their actions. The way to die is beheading by guillotine, or "the widow" in the vernacular.

Thus begins this story that director Patrice Leconte directed, based on the screen play by Claude Faraldo. The story is set in the remote island of Saint Pierre, off the coast of Newfoundland. This is a hostile environment settled by the French. Saint Pierre boasts a lot of widows who have survived the rigors of the climate and the hard lives their husbands led.

Into this milieu we find a military captain and his wife. Both are Parisians and appear to be compassionate, at heart. When Neel, the surviving drunk is brought to be kept in a cell within the military quarters of the island, the wife, Madame La, takes an interest in the man. With her husband's consent, she asks for his help in tending a green house in the premises and other errands.

Neel and Madame La are at simple view, just opposites. The kindness Neel sees in her, transforms him. Madame La even goes to help him learn to read. All these actions don't sit well with the rest of the inhabitants and the people in the government who demand a guillotine is sent over and have him execute the prisoner.

The film works because the brilliant performance of Juliette Binoche, who as Madame La, makes her mark in the picture. Her compassion for Neel is genuine; in her heart she believes this man, a product of the environment in which he was born, shows qualities that no one has seen in him.

Emir Kusturica, a noted film director himself, is also one of the assets of the movie. Mr. Kusturica is a large man with unkempt looks, who is totally believable as Neel. His interaction with Madame La turns from gratitude into a noble love that is not meant to be.

The other principal is Daniel Auteuil who is perfect as the captain, the husband of Madame La, who is outraged by what he perceives to be the wrong punishment for the accused Neel. In spite of the menacing presence of Neel next to his wife, he trusts her as he knows her kind heart belongs to him only.

"La veuve de Saint Pierre" is a great movie that will satisfy viewers in search of a different story. Patrice Leconte has directed with panache as he takes us to see the beauty of Saint Pierre, something that is so bleak, yet it's a place that has a magnetic attraction as we watch the film unfold.

I was most impressed with the visual language of this movie that does not waste words to show emotions. The tensions are well reflected in the play of the actors, whose gestures, shrugs and smiles say more than a thousand lines.

Another interesting feature of the movie is that it does not follow the easy path of romance that is "expected" by the public. In turn, it exposes a world which is cruel, unfair, where justice is determined by personal interests and where those who fight the system are seen as mad and excluded from the "high society".

It is a movie about the determination to fight for something one believes in!

In 1849, in the Archipelago of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, the drunken Ariel Neel Auguste (Emir Kusturica) and his partner Louis Ollivier (Reynald Bouchard) kill for a futile motive (to see if he is fat or just big) the fishing boat captain Coupard (Michel Daigle). Nell, who stabbed the victim, is sentenced to die with his head severed in the guillotine while Louis is sentenced to hard labor. During the transportation to the prison under the custody of Captain Jean (Daniel Auteuil), there is an accident and Louis dies. While spending his days in the cell waiting for the guillotine and the executioner, Neel is invited by the captain's wife Mrs. Pauline (Juliette Binoche) to help her in her garden and becomes her protégé. Later he has a process of rehabilitation helping the locals in minor works and becomes very popular in the island. When he saves the building Café du Nord and her owner from sinking in the sea, his popularity increases and nobody but the governor and politicians of the council wants his death. Neel marries Eleontine Jeanne-Marie, but sooner he is informed that the ship Marie Galante has just left Martinique bringing a guillotine. Now the Governor and politicians need to find an executioner in the population to execute the sentence.

"La Veuve de Saint-Pierre" is a beautiful dramatization of a story of rehabilitation and intolerance. I do not know whether this event is partially true or not – there are references in Internet to this story but in sites that I can not trust – but this movie is wonderful. The story and screenplay are engaging and very well written with powerful lines; the direction of Patrice Leconte and the performances are top- notch, with Juliette Binoche extremely beautiful and elegant as usual and showing a magnificent chemistry with Daniel Auteuil; the cinematography and costumes are wonderful. Based on my adjectives, it is unnecessary to say that I loved this movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Viúva de Saint-Pierre" ("The Widow of Saint-Pierre")

As the best of French cinema does so adroitly, "The Window of Saint-Pierre" tells most of it's story laconically with knowing looks and subtle behaviors while the story it tells is a relentlessly plodding drama of unspoken words and the emotions they evoke. "Widow..." is more about integrity, honor, love, and other intangibles than it is about its relatively simple storyline and the characters involved. A beautifully crafted somber film, "Widow..." is recommended for mature audiences because a measure of maturation is required to appreciate all this austere film has to offer.