Une femme douce

Suloinen nainen / En ljuv kvinna. FR © 1969 Parc Film / Marianne Productions. P: Mag Bodard. D+SC: Robert Bresson – based on the short story "Krotkaya" (1876) by Dostoevsky. DP: Ghislain Cloquet – Eastmancolor – 1:1,66. AD: Pierre Charbonnier. COST: Renée Miguel. M: Jean Wiener. M excerpts: Henry Purcell's overture ”Come Ye Sons Of Old”; W.A. Mozart. ED: Raymond Lamy. S: Jacques Maumont, Jacques Lebreton, Urbain Loiseau. CAST: Dominique Sanda (woman), Guy Frangin (man), Jane Lobre (Anna). LOC: Paris and its surroundings 2 Sep-12 Nov 1968. 2435 m / 88 min.
    Print: La Cinémathèque française. E-subtitles by Lena Talvio, Hamlet dialogue by Paavo Cajander. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 12 Nov 2009.

A brilliant print with a perfect definition of colour. - This film has not in my knowledge been seen in Finland since the 1970s. - Revisited a masterpiece by Bresson which I had seen twice in the 1970s and not since. - A strong, compact, lucid film: the husband's regret over his wife's corpse after she has committed suicide. The story of their relationship through flashbacks. - Interspersed, without confusing the strong central tension, are cultural references. The woman is an avid reader, interested in many things, for instance in birds, in zoology, in bones, in the unity of all living, the raw matter is the same with all animals and humans. She is also a music lover, who switches abruptly like a dj from rhythm music to Mozart. They visit an art gallery with mobiles and kinetic art. They visit the theatre and see the final scene of Hamlet. They visit the cinema and see a historical epic with Pierre Clémenti. On tv, there is car racing, horse racing, and other sports. - There is no or little score music. Instead, the traffic noise is ubiquitous. - This is the story of the meeting of two incompatible people. Yet the relationship is ardently sexual. - The story is profoundly mysterious, yet not mystifying nor absurd. - This affair is a matter of life and death. - "I'll give you all, you'll get paradise". But it is too late.