Une Femme Douce

UNE FEMME DOUCE           B+                  

aka:  A Gentle Woman

France  (88 mi)  1969  d:  Robert Bresson

A film of transience, illustrated by the everpresent sound of street traffic heard throughout the film, where the moment one steps outside the Parisian streets are jammed with flowing traffic, seeing cars, buses, and even trains as they move from one station to the next, where life has a similar transitory theme where our time is fleeting.  The first Bresson film in color, also featuring the only one of his typically non-professional actors (Dominique Sanda in her first film) to ever become an international star, which she did shortly afterwards in her next film, Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Il Conformista)  (1970), which remains one of the greatest films ever made, so this is not your typical Bresson, though it retains his uncompromising nature featuring a spare and emotionally detached performance, but Sanda (as Elle) is unimaginably gorgeous.  Adapting the Dostoevsky short story A Gentle Creature, it opens with a suicide where Elle flings herself off a balcony onto the street below, where we only see the curtains fluttering in the breeze and a white scarf floating in air as the sound of traffic comes to a screeching halt, where the film is a flashback recalled in a narration by her husband Luc (Guy Frangin), a local pawnbroker, to his maid (Jeanne Lobre) as they stand next to the body which they’ve moved to a bed inside, where in a unique twist the entire film is really taking place inside his head.  At first, he barely pays any attention to her when she brings in various items for money, mixing her with others who come streaming in, but soon he keeps awaiting her return, singling her out, paying more than her items are worth, until all she has to offer is a crucifix, where he strips the Jesus from the gold backing, a sign of his spiritual void, though he eventually offers to help her out of debt through marriage.  Without any backstory to her situation, or a date, or any romantic inclinations, they marry. 

Bresson fills the screen with fleeting moments, as they are continually moving up and down the stairs, coming in and out of the apartment, moving in and out of rooms, where rarely do they actually spend any real time together.  It’s apparent Luc filters everything through himself, rarely expressing any interest in her life, using love as a means of possession, as a way to keep her all to himself, where she remains affectionate and sexually submissive as a wife, but unfulfilled.  Luc is such a self-centered and insecure guy that it’s difficult to listen to him ramble endlessly about himself, while she remains a quiet mystery, never one to reveal herself, yet luxuriously beautiful in her passivity, rendered almost as a saint by Bresson for her enduring patience and state of grace.  Luc, on the other hand, grows more distrustful and anxious by her silence and occasional absences, which he treats as a game, trying to outlast her indifference as if she is testing him, also becoming instantly jealous, always thinking the worst, and occasionally follows her surreptitiously on the street.  While in the apartment, there’s an interesting use of television, as neither actually sits and watches, but initially motor racing serves is a prelude to intimacy, much like Fassbinder uses World Cup Soccer in THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1979), while later historical scenes of the Royal Air Force (RAF) battling the Nazi Luftwaffe in the air during the prolonged Battle of Britain sets the tone for their marital disintegration.  There’s an accompanying theme of being a bird locked in a cage, as Elle reads aloud from a book that suggests each bird has a unique call that they’re born with, a distinct sound that forever becomes synonymous with their identity.   

Perhaps the most unusual Bressonian device in this film is the play within the play, as they both see a live theatrical performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet where the finale, featuring swordplay and a poisoned cup, plays out in real time where all the central characters drop dead within a few short minutes.  Shortly afterwards, Elle falls into an inexplicable illness of lengthy duration where Luc promises steadfast devotion and love, which feels almost comically absurd to her, as she seems to understand the deeper motive, where she’s never felt more stifling oppression and where she can’t bear the thought of spending another day in his suffocating presence.  The picture of him hovering over her declaring his love holds little meaning, as he’s a man that doesn’t know the first thing about love, and yet somehow the two are eternally linked together.  What’s peculiar about this couple is their inability to communicate, where Elle offers few clues as to how she feels, where she sings to herself when he’s not around, or listens to music, but shuts it all down when he arrives, returning to a web of gloomy silence that is impenetrable.  Without ever expressing what’s wrong, both remain stuck in perpetual restraint, immobile, paralyzed by their own indecisiveness.  It’s a relationship that remains polite and civil but feels doomed, especially narrated by the rather heartless and shortsighted Luc, as even by the end of the film when he’s nailing the screws into her coffin, he’s no nearer to understanding what went wrong or why any of this happened.  It’s an extremely fragile expression of the tenuousness of life, showing how easily life can suddenly and mysteriously disappear, often without any good reason or explanation, simply by illness or accident.  Death becomes more pronounced in Bresson’s later films, as does suicide, where this feels like a prelude to the dance.