Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962)
Directed by Georges Franju

Film Review

The austere poetry of Georges Franju's cinema is at its most hauntingly expressive in this evocative adaptation of François Mauriac's famous 1927 novel, Thérèse Desqueyroux.  In common with his earlier bleak realist drama La Tête contre les murs (1959) and macabre fantasy Les Yeux sans visage (1960), Franju's fourth feature derives most of its intense lyrical power from its stark visuals, which in this case powerfully convey the sense of confinement felt by a young married woman who, like a bird trapped in a cage, pines to be set free.  Thérèse Desqueyroux is arguably Franju's most inspired and sophisticated film - not only does it perfectly convey the essence of Mauriac's novel, it also impresses with its own unique artistry, particularly in the way in which the heroine's interior world is projected into the space around her so that we are compelled to sympathise with her plight, even if we cannot entirely understand her actions.

Early on in a career that would all too rapidly burn itself out, Emmanuelle Riva was the French actress best suited for the title role of Thérèse Desqueyroux, an ambiguous and not entirely likeable character that calls for a special talent if she is to avoid coming across as egoistical and unbearably maudlin.  Through a restrained but remarkably expressive performance, assisted by a hypnotic interior monologue that runs the entire length of the film, Riva subtly exposes her character's torment, her sense of entrapment in a stale bourgeois marriage and longing for release, whilst retaining her sense of mystery.  Thérèse Desqueyroux is one of French literature's most enigmatic and unfathomable heroines, one who somehow manages to gain our sympathies by revealing so little about herself.  As in the novel, we never understand what drives Thérèse to attempt to kill her husband, nor do we really comprehend why she opted to marry him.  She represents that part of ourselves that we can never understand, the subconscious will that acts seemingly without rhyme or reason.

Philippe Noiret is equally well-cast for the part of Thérèse's unsympathetic husband Bernard, perfectly encapsulating in his performance the cold indifference and insensitivity of the bourgeois milieu in which the heroine allows herself to become trapped.  Noiret would become a past master at playing ambiguous characters who are far more complex and perverse than is apparent on the surface, and his portrayal of Bernard Desqueyroux is a good example of this.  For most of the film, Bernard is the most unprepossessing of husbands - he neglects his wife before she tries to kill him, and then, having committed perjury to have her acquitted, he treats her like a sick animal, locking her away in his remote country house.  It is only when he sees the consequences of his thoughtless cruelty that his better nature begins to assert itself and he starts to show Thérèse the kindness she has long yearned for.  The final scene in which Bernard comes so close to a reconciliation with his wife is devastatingly poignant, but, like Thérèse, we know he doesn't quite have enough compassion to make it.  It is through a bitter parting that Thérèse gains her freedom, and you cannot help sensing that this is not the happy ending she had hoped for.

Whilst the film time-shifts Mauriac's novel (originally set in the 1920s) to the present day and adopts only one point of view (that of Thérèse), it is in all other respects faithful to its source.  In writing his novel, Mauriac claimed he was strongly influenced by cinema and employed many cinematic devices (such as the narrative flashback and sudden opening) to give his book a modern touch.  Franju retains these devices in his film, but more crucially he manages to replicate the unrelentingly oppressive mood of the novel whilst preserving the mystique of the central character (in this he is greatly assisted by a memorable score from Maurice Jarre).  Franju's Thérèse Desqueyroux is one of French cinema's most chilling critiques of the bourgeoisie but it is also a powerfully moving expression of a basic human impulse, to be set free and live according to the dictates of our heart, rather than to the rules imposed on us by a society that values status and order above individuality and personal fulfilment.  Claude Miller's grander 2012 version has a similar impact, but it falls short of the exquisite poetry of Franju's film, one of the finest literary adaptations in French cinema.

Film Synopsis

Thérèse Desqueyroux tries to kill her husband, Bernard, by poisoning him, but the attempt fails.  To avoid a scandal that will ruin his name, Bernard gives false evidence which results in his wife's acquittal.  When Thérèse is returning to her home in Argelouse, she brings to mind the events that led to her present predicament.  She recalls her happy adolescence with her friend, Anne, whose half-brother she ended up marrying.  It was not to be a happy marriage, though.  Bernard's only preoccupations were his name and fortune, and these led him to break up Anne's love affair with a Jewish man.  When Bernard began taking medicine containing arsenic, Thérèse saw an opportunity for her to escape from her miserable existence, by killing the man she has grown to despise...