L’Amour violé (1978) - film review

One evening, a nurse, Nicole, is heading home on her moped when she is driven off the road by a van.  Four men get out of the van and proceed to taunt her, before abducting her.  She is taken to a remote spot where she is forced to strip naked, thereupon she is raped by each man in turn.  Traumatised by the experience, she finally manages to tell her fiancé, Jacques, a serviceman.  His reaction is predictable: initially he is disgusted by Nicole, and then he is ready to hunt down her aggressors and punish them.  Although she too is hungry for revenge, Nicole finally accepts the advice of a friend to go to the police.  When the four men are arrested, Nicole is surprised to learn that they are far from being the mindless brutes she had imagined…

It is hard to imagine that a film that deals so frankly with rape and its consequences could have been made in the late 1970s.  At the time, the subject of rape was a virtual taboo, and certainly a no-go area for cinema and television.  Feminist filmmaker Yannick Bellon clearly had a message to convey and she does this with startling effectiveness in L’Amour violé, possibly the most insightful and shocking of her social-realist dramas.  The brutally of the rape scene is underscored by the conventional, matter-of-fact way in which it is shot – the rape is presented both as a bit of laddish fun from the male perspective and as a harrowing ordeal from the side of its female victim.  This dual perspective runs right through the film and is central to the message it is telling us.  Rape can never, under any circumstances, be tolerated, and its perpetrators must be punished, lawfully.  Whilst a few scenes do seem weighed down by excessive pontification, the film manages to tackle many complex themes intelligently but with great sensitivity and humanity.  Nathalie Nell is magnificent as the film’s “heroine” – hers is a truly heartbreaking and convincing portrayal of a woman who goes through Hell to see justice done and her dignity finally regained.


© James Travers 2006

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