Et Dieu... créa la femme (1956) - film review

Juliette is a orphan living with her foster mother in St Tropez.  She is in love with Antoine, who owns a local boatyard, but ends up marrying his younger brother, Michel.  Juliette is pursued by both Antonine and a wealthy business man who is planning to buy the boatyard so he can build a casino.  Finally, things come to a head.  Angered by his wife’s excessive flirtations, Michel confronts Juliette and makes his move to rein her back.

This is a remarkable film in a number of ways, although the scenario is unimaginably bland and unconvincing, and the ending disappointingly tame.  The importance of the film lies in two things: the fact that it catapulted Brigitte Bardot to the status of a film star and, most significantly, it provided the foundation for the French New Wave.

Bardot dominates this film with an incredible screen presence, which can only be attributed in part to her physical beauty.  There is a depth of personal attachment in her portray of Juliette that endears her to the audience from the very first scene.  She is the both the orphan victim, friendless and vulnerable, and the wild, untamed creature (like the rabbit she befriends in the film), subject to animalistic passions and moments of blind folly.  This is Bardot at her best and it is a little disappointing that Vadim, like so many directors after him, chose to accentuate her porn appeal in preference to  her impressive acting talent.

Et Dieu... créa la femme comes very close to belying the myth that the French New Wave began with Truffaut and Godard’s first films.  The film shares many of the characteristics of that era of French cinema, particularly the vividness of the photography and the sheer energy in the film.  For its time, this must have been a very daring film, particularly given the conservative tastes of French cinema-goers in the mid 1950s.

Vadim was so impressed with his work that he remade the film in the late 1980s, but, lacking the presence of Bardot, the result was scarcely a patch on the original. The original Et Dieu... créa la femme succeeded, despite the shallowness of its subject matter, because it happened at just the right time.  Its impact on French cinema can only be guessed at, but it was probably very considerable indeed.

© James Travers 2002

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