Director: Robert Bresson
Screenplay: Robert Bresson
Based on a Short Story by: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Starring: Dominique Sanda, Guy Frangin
Country: France
Running Time: 88 min
Year: 1969
BBFC Certificate: 12
Rounding out another amazing year for Radiance are three releases, (‘Splendid Outing’ and ‘Le Notti Bianche’) two of which are based upon a work by Dostoevsky. The Russian writer was a constant source of inspiration for Bresson throughout his career and ‘Une femme douce’ is based upon a short work that translates as ‘A Gentle Creature’.
The story is a fairly simple one at first glance. At the start, we witness the suicide of a young woman (unnamed in the film but played by Dominique Sanda) whose body is then picked up and taken back to the marital bed by her husband, Luc (Guy Frangin). A pawn dealer, Luc then tells the story of how they met and their brief life together. Like many of Bresson’s works, it feels like a confessional between the audience and the characters on the screen. We are intimately let into the couple’s lives as we see her unwillingness to marry and his jealousy work together to make their lives a misery.
‘Une Femme Douce’ is an under-seen gem in Bresson’s catalogue. In the book, ‘Bresson on Bresson’, a collection of interviews with the director about his films, there is one singular interview for ‘Une Femme Douce’. That is spring, as the film is Bresson’s first foray into colour filmmaking. With someone whose films seem to so strongly belong to a world of rich contrasting blacks and whites, I was surprised to see how well he made the transition. Going from his classic ‘Mouchette’ (1967) straight to ‘Une femme douce’ is as if I was seeing colour for the first time— a far more radical jump than when other directors of the day made the switch. Unlink someone like Hitchcock, who leans into the lavishness of technicolour to make sure the story fits the format; Bresson has another approach, as he continues telling the same stories but with added pops of colour that are quietly arresting. The red blood on Sanda’s face when she is first placed on the bed, for example, feels so heightened and almost risqué because of the restrained nature of how Bresson directs his actors (or ‘models’ as he called them).
The film itself has an interesting structure where the use of ‘flashbacks’ is employed for us to understand the couple’s relationship. Bresson, however, was against the idea of them being flashbacks. For Bresson, ‘there are no flashbacks, there is no rupture in tone, everything happens in the same temporality’. There are moments where the voiceover of Luc connects between the husband in the ‘past’ and the husband in the ‘present’, and the only way we know that a switch has happened is down to the clothes he’s wearing.
Bresson’s use of sound is always exciting and, for him, operated in the same way that music does. There is a television set that features, which feels anachronistic for a previous Bresson. It is there to occasionally feel the room with a cacophony of squealing motor cars that accompany the couple as they get into bed the first time as a married couple. Everything sonically in the film is working to unsettle us to keep the audience aware that what you are watching is not a love story.
This marks the continuation of Bresson’s work to feature more vital emotions than in his previous films. Along with a very brief nude scene, we have Dominique Sanda, who gives an incredible performance, bursting with raw emotion. You can see why she would go on to become a leading star (a feat not normally achieved by one of Bresson’s ‘Models’). There is also an element of the counterculture and youth movement that weaves its way into ‘Une femme douce’, Sanda’s record collection, and her free-spirited nature to stand up against her husband when he tries to get her to conform or fit his ideal of a ‘gentle woman’. It’s a testament to Bresson that he never lost his fire the more films he made but conversely stoked it more vigorously.
Special Features
Audio Commentary by Michael Brooke
This is an absolutely information packed commentary that delves into all areas of the production and also subsequent critiques of the film. It moves at a fair pace but at no time did I feel overwhelmed and I left with a deeper appreciation of the film.
Visual Essay by Cristina Alvarez and Adrian Martin
This is also a fantastic extra for getting to know the film better. I recommend watching this straight after watching the film.
Archival interviews with Dominique Sanda and Robert Bresson.
Both of these are excerpts from french television programs and are interesting curios (particularly the Bresson interview) and help to provide an exploration of their working relationship on set