Mademoiselle

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.

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.

I learned about "Mademoiselle" from a "Salon" web interview with cinematographer John Bailey (see link below).

He pointed out a remarkable thing—that the film consists entirely of static wide-screen shots. No pans, no zooms, no dollying, just one immaculate, immobile shot after another. That's one reason the film, unpleasant as it may be, has a calm unsettling pace that's the opposite of today's frenetic films.

Bailey said: "...the fascinating thing about (Richardson's film) is there's not a single camera movement in the entire film...All the action happens within a static frame. This film is, like, two hours long, and it's absolutely riveting. It's so unlike anything that you would ever see now."

from Salon article www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2003/07/03/cinematographers

The legendary Jeanne Moreau stars as Mademoiselle, a school teacher, filled with repressed sexual urges, in a small French village. She finds ways to vent her desires, mostly through arson and other destructive acts.

Mademoiselle seems like a film that desperately wants to be profound. It seems like a film that wants to say something about repressing desires, and the insignificance of mankind against nature. For the most part, it fails. It is unclear whether Mademoiselle's violent actions are the product of sexual desire or simple sadism. She sets fires and opens floodgates, but is it a sexual urge? Not really, she just seems to get a kick out of watching the townspeople scramble to save their lives and possessions.

And while the film is directed with an interesting visual flair that does often capture the beauty of nature quite well, it never really achieves a level of Lean-esquire glory or magnificence. Sure, it's pretty to look at, but what's the point? The acting is also sorely lacking. Ettore Manni, who plays Mademoiselle's (and everyone else's) sexual interest, is just not very good. He often unleashes these boisterous laughs, and every time I cringed. It's not even a little bit convincing. Even the usually wonderful Moreau fails to impress here. Her performance just feels hollow. As she has proved in the past that she can be very good, I blame director Tony Richardson, who, unlike someone like François Truffaut or Louis Malle, clearly doesn't grasp what Moreau is capable of.

That's not to say Mademoiselle is a failure. There are several deeply disturbing moments, one in particular involving a rabbit. The film seems to be trying to say that all human beings can be monsters at times, and we take out our suppressed aggression on whatever innocence may be around us. Still, the film seems to lack a core of genuine emotional depth, and therefore, lacks resonance. It doesn't help that it tends to move along at a remarkably slow pace, which causes it to try the viewer's patience at times.

However, I would probably give Mademoiselle a mild recommendation, if for nothing besides the attractive visuals and the fact that it contains Jeanne Moreau.

This is a real gem from British director Tony Richardson (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Taste of Honey) and French jailbird Jean Genet, very rarely seen, filled with eerie and wondrous black and white photography courtesy of David Watkins, whose static camera seems to peer more deeply into certain moments than should be possible, making many of the outdoor scenes in particular feel mythic and fairytale-like.

Jeanne Moreau, as the sociopathic small-town schoolteacher, reminded me very much of Isabelle Huppert in another of my favourite films, La Pianiste - there's the same cold, reptilian, but hypnotically mesmerizing malevolence, and a desire on our part to understand what can't be understood. Ettore Manni, as the immigrant lumberjack Manou, has many moments of delicate injury and thoughtful reflection amid his lusty joi de vivre that makes him a much more appealing and relatable character.

It's a very simple story, and perhaps doesn't have all that much more to tell us other than people are unfathomably strange and usually smallminded, and that evil is mundane and often rewarded when hiding in plain sight in a fragile form. And yet the effect of it all is much more, and this feels both a very modern and forward-thinking film (the long, stationary shots reminded me particularly of the movies of Michael Haneke) and a very ageless film, unmoored from any particular era - either way, it certainly doesn't feel like it was made the same year The Beatles were making Yellow Submarine.

It falls a little short of greatness because of its slightness of story and lack of cohesion - most of the English supporting cast are a little weak too - but I can wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone wanting to see beautiful cinema and willing to go for a ride into the murkier waters of the human heart.