La dentellière

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.

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.

The student from Paris and his friends are intellectuals. He reads Le Monde. He is stamped by his background. The girl is in love with love. Everywhere she turns, there is love and passion evident, even through the hotel's thin walls. She only wishes to please and outwardly doesn't project herself as a self-regulated person. Her lower class background is clear before she goes on vacation where she meets the student. Although they stay in the same hotel, this is about the only thing they have in common beside the bed they share, but being removed from their normal lives just delays the obvious. Love is idyllic at first for everyone. She is hopelessly adrift among his friends in Paris and cannot communicate with them. This class based depiction is consistent with how many French view that one's birth divides a person from the other classes.

The class-based system exists here in the South, but I have a feeling that passion and love and familiarity more readily breaks down barriers than those 30 years ago in France.

This is a movie well worth seeing.

Who knows why we retain the memory of some films and others remain a forgotten blip. "The Lacemaker" stayed with me over the years. I thought Isabelle Huppert played a marvelous part, and the story line fascinated me. I can still feel the sadness of her character when she was rejected by her lover, and then paid the price for her addiction to him. Films like "Blade Runner," "Murmur of the Heart," "Experience Preferred but not Essential, " The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "Closely Watched Trains," and a host of other good films will always be special to me, but not as endearing as "La Dentelliere."

There is something very beautiful about it though I feel I can't just put my finger on it but it is super simple yet super effective and impacting movie and performance especially by Isabelle Huppert...she is so vulnerable, simple, sad and natural...