La souriante Madame Beudet

I discovered this title from the 1001 Movie List and didn't know anything about it, so I watched it cold and had a hard time following along with the plot. Eventually, things made sense by the end of the movie, but I wanted to give the movie a fair shake. So, after doing some research, it turns out, The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923), was picked for the 1001 list, because of its importance to film history, most notably the fact, that the film is considered as being the first feminist film ever made, which makes sense, once the plot is established. So, I decided to watch the film again, at least to the point, where I wasn't lost anymore.

As I started watching The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923), a second time (It's only 42 minutes long), the plot unfolded better for me. Our Madame lives in a lifeless, loveless marriage with an annoying guy, who has a weird sense of humor. His favorite joke eventually plays a big role in the overall plot, but that's all I will say about that. In fact, it is that part o the film, that saves this dull, slow-starting film and finishes it with a decent ending. Germaine Dermoz is the actress, who plays the depressed Madame Beudet. She delivers a pretty good performance. She has the facial expressions down, that actors/actresses had to master during the silent era. The expressions work just as good as words do, if done right. That is what made the silent era great. Faces speaking volumes. Beudet is able to express to us, the sadness she is going through. Along with director Germaine Dulac's impressionist, avant-garde camera-work, the acting work of Dermoz and the interesting ending, The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923), ends up being just good.

PMTM Grade: 6.2 (D+) = 6 IMDB.

Smilling Madame Beudet was a good short film that is first in history to have a real feminist message in it and it probably inspired many films in future because of that.In this film we are watching a woman that is unhappy in marriage and she wants to get rid of her husband but unfortunetly for her she fails in the end.Characters were her just little explored cause runtime is short but it worked very well in end.Smilling Madame Beudet was a good short film but it wasnt one of best that i seen

I know a lot of what happens in marriages are weird, but to have a story where the husband continually as a sort of running gag puts a gun to his head and "pretends" he's going to shoot himself to control his wife or make her comply with him as he laughs his ass off, only for her (in her abject misery) finally just loads up the gun (it's usually blank) when he's not around is uh... jeez.

Thankfully, Dermoz gives an astonishing performance as maybe the first truly naturalistic depiction or a miserable feeling sort of wife, like it feels more modern than what was likely being done in the Silent era (nothing histrionic or melodramatic, just someone who looks so sad, even when she can cuddle with her cat), and Arquilliere as the husband is a brilliant scumbag.

I'm not sure what else I should take from this, aside from how the old phrase Something's Got to Give and that this coming from a female perspective gives it an extra charge of necessary vitriol. But there are some fascinating dreamlike visuals of the wife picturing her husband as a sort of laughing demon in her home, and how director Dulac has Dermoz brush her hair with such melancholy in front of the three mirrors are inspired.

The Smiling Madame Beudet / La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923) : Brief Review -

A great french expressionist silent feature and unlikely first truly feminist film. Even with unlikely probability of being first feminist drama The Smiling Madame Beudet can be termed as one at least for the French cinema. I remember watching D. W. Griffith's feminist films (in dramatic mode) made before this so i won't count it as one. The film is about a woman trapped in loveless marriage and it also explores several devastating moments from the woman's life. However, the captured version is soulless at the beginning, it gathers a solid momentum and connectivity in last 10 minutes. Those dream sequences, delusional obsession and never smiling face of the woman (even in the last frame of her) should be considered as a part of great filmmaking. And it is directed by pioneering 'avant-garde cinema' director Germaine Dulac, who, in my opinion wasn't able to put that famous non-narrative structure in this film. It was far away from intricate storytelling but that ultimately gave it an advantage to carry that it is rather more convincing and intense, exactly what the context required from it. The husband's character was well written if you see his own joke becomes the biggest turnaround of his life and at the same time the wife remains still even after wrong surmise and big tragedy. In a way i would have loved to see that much anticipated "Smile" on her face as mentioned in the title but there was not a single frame for it. Instead, it went in completely opposite direction to catch the realistic expressionism. So, yes it becomes an innovative product overall which is deservingly known by art cinema lovers and i would like to carry forward the recommendation.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest

French female director Germaine Dulac appeared to take Jean Epstein's articles to heart when she released 1923's "The Smiling Madame Beudet." Like Epstein, her plot is threadbare, about an unhappy wife who first intends to kill her husband, seeing an opportunity in his habit of taking a gun whenever he's frustrated and pretending to shoot himself in the head. She places a real bullet in the chamber of his gun, but realizes through a dream it's not the right thing to do. She attempts to extract the bullet but is thwarted by constant interruptions.

"The Smiling Madame Beudet" has been cited as cinema's first feminist film because the protagonist isn't taking an unhappy marriage passively. Dulac, a leading figure of feminist rights and activism in France, wrote of the downtrodden position of contemporary women. With support from her husband Louis-Albert Dulac, an agricultural engineer, whom she divorced in 1920, she embarked on a 30-film career from 1915 through 1935. Her most important work was "The Smiling Madame Beudet," (who ironically is not once seen smiling in the 40-minute picture).

Through close-up images of the husband (Alexandre Arquilliere) and wife (Germaine Dermoz), Dulac is able to convey the anger coming from the spouse while Madame Beudet's blank face shows an apathy towards him. Her expressions become more animated as the movie progresses, reaching a peak as the final sequence unfolds.

Since every scene takes place in the interior of their home and office, "The Smiling Madame Beudet" doesn't reflect the gritty exterior atmosphere of Epstein's "The Faithful Heart." But the realism shown by Dulac of the marriage is as realistic as Epstein's film, hitting to the core the many frustrations couples have in communicating with one another. So important is Dulac's movie that it is included in "1001 Movies you Must See Before You Die."