078 - Ladies of the Boulogne Wood, 1945, France. Dir. Robert Bresson.

Saturday, March 19, 2017

078 - Ladies of the Boulogne Wood, 1945, France. Dir. Robert Bresson.

Welcome to Robert Bresson.

Robert Bresson has made his second feature film.  We have more to come, and they are juicy.

This one is not typical of his style to come.

It is the last time he will work exclusively with professional actors.  After this film, he will grow entranced with non-actors.

We will see how that works out.

This story begins with our heroine Helene and her dear friend Jacques.  They have gone out for the evening.  They get into a cab.  They are going home.  She is unhappy.

He tries to cheer her.

She is in love with a man named Jean.  They are dating.  She suspects he is unfaithful.  She suspects he does not love her.

She is going out with her friend Jacques partly because she and Jean agreed to this kind of relationship.  A little bit loose.  A little bit open.

Jacques says some lovely things to her.  He really cares about her.

It is too bad we will not see him again.  He would have made a great leading character in the story.  But after tonight, and his failed attempts to make her feel better, and his promise to her that he will be there for her whenever she needs him, we will not see him again.

That is at least an error on her part--she could have used the help of her friend--if not on the part of the writers.

Jean Cocteau wrote the screenplay, or dialogue, as they say in France.  And we know we like him from his masterful film Beauty and the Beast, which we saw on January 3.

So perhaps it goes back to the original novella by Denis Diderot.  Or the choices of the director, Robert Bresson himself.

Nevertheless . . .

Helene arrives home.  Jean enters.  She decides to test him.

She pretends that her love for him has cooled.  She wants to see if he will protest.  If he will be sad to hear her revelation.  If he will fight for her.

Ladies, testing a man like that is not a good idea.  He will try to please you.  He will try to give you what you want.  He will be a gentleman.  If you ask him to back away, he will back away.

In Jean's case, however, she is in fact giving him what he wants.  He is relieved.  Finally!  He is free to date around out in the open.

Now he and she can be friends.  They can discuss their other romances openly with one another.

He is happy.

She is crushed.

All she wants is for him to love her.

Again, communicating that fact openly and clearly might prove a more successful strategy.

Helene, for whom we have been sympathetic up to this moment, decides to take revenge.  She will destroy him.

The rest of the film shows her manipulating a mother and daughter to enter into a relationship with Jean.

The daughter, Agnes, used to be a cabaret singer, which is 1945 code for prostitute, and somehow this fact will prove to be devastating to Jean when he finds out too late, after their wedding.

We who grew up on Pretty Woman, where marrying a prostitute is a romantic dream, an act of chivalry, the function of a knight in shining armor, may have a hard time understanding how this trick will prove so devastating to Jean.

Helene works her dark charm.  She succeeds in getting them married.  At the reception she reveals the truth to Jean.  You have married a tramp!

Agnes decides to die to free Jean of the trouble.

Jean loves her anyway.

She decides to live.

Love wins.