Summary
Aged 35, Catherine Berger leaves prison after having completed a 15 year prison sentence
for complicity in the murder of her employer. She gave birth to a son whilst in
custody and, once released from prison, intends to rebuild her life with him...
Review
This film is a curious mixture of drama and light comedy which resembles Claude Lelouch’s
earlier (better known) film, Un homme et une femme, in both structure, content
and style. The photography is distinctively Lelouch, with waltzing camera movements,
excessive use of natural light (often to the point of whiting out most of the screen)
and an unnatural sound track (with small sounds like a bird song or a tap dripping muffling
out what ought to be louder sounds).
All this visual and acoustic gimmickry works very well in the first half of the film when
the film’s subject, the unfortunate Catherine, returns to normal life after a long
period of incarceration, achieving an almost Bressonesque communion of her inner-self
with the her environment. Unfortunately, the style does not develop at all when
things improve for Catherine and Lelouch’s stylistic feats of photographic originality
rapidly appear unnecessary and at variance with the direction the film appears to be heading.
The justification for this artistic overload is unveiled at the end of the film, but by
that stage you feel that Lelouch has pulled a fast one.
Despite these quibbles, this is an entertaining ninety or so minutes of cinema which offers
us one of Catherine Deneuve’s better performances in addition to some truly wacky
camera work. The lively musical score complements the exuberant photography making
this a delightfully uplifting film.
© James Travers 2000
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