Film Review
Serge Poligny began his career by directing French language versions of
German films at the UFA studios in Berlin - films such as
Vous serez ma femme (1932) and
L'Étoile de Valencia
(1933).
Claudine à
l'école was the first film that can properly be called
his own, and the first in which his distinctive auteur voice can be
readily discerned, anticipating the two great films he would make
during the war -
Le Baron
fantôme (1943) and
La Fiancée des
ténèbres (1945). Poligny's
Claudine à l'école
was cinema's second adaptation of Colette's debut autobiographical
novel of the same title (first published in 1900) - previously a silent
version had been released in 1917.
Poligny's reverence for the French countryside is apparent in the
film's most striking passages, which have a similar impressionistic
picturesque quality to what we find in Jean Renoir's
Partie de campagne, filmed the
previous year but abandoned. These scenes of bucolic harmony, a
hymn to the splendour of nature, effectively counterpoint the emotional
turbulence experienced by the heroine Claudine as she succumbs to the
first pangs of love, and, as in Renoir's film, they carry an
intoxicating evocation of la belle époque, the idyllic period in
which much of Colette's fiction is set. Only in the films of
Marcel Pagnol is France's rural hinterland as beautifully presented in
a film of this era.
The studio scenes are less impressive and Poligny has some difficulty
overcoming the deadening static quality to which films of the 1930s
were particularly prone. Where camera motion is used it is too
readily noticed and becomes distracting, and Poligny's use of ceiling
shots feels just as gratuitous. There is however one scene that
is hard to forget, the one in which Claudine (Blanchette Brunoy,
stunning in her first important role) enters a classroom that is
deserted except for the presence of the distraught new schoolmistress
Miss Lanthenay. Bathed in light, as a mockery of a religious
painting, Claudine resembles a ministering angel arriving on Earth to
heal the afflicted. In fact, it is the prelude to one of the most
scandalous passages in French literature, a lesbian love affair between
a schoolteacher and her pupil.
The film draws a discrete veil over some of the more controversial
aspects of Colette's novel and, whilst there is an obvious suggestion
of homoeroticism, the girly love-in proves to be a chaste affair,
without so much as a peck on the cheek. Claudine's teenage
yearnings are soon redirected towards a member of the male sex (a
surprisingly sympathetic Pierre Brasseur), although there is some
ambiguity as to whether it is Dr Dubois or Miss Lanthenay who is really
the apple of Claudine's eye. Despite the liberties it takes with
Colette's novel,
Claudine à
l'école manages to be an engaging coming-of-age piece
that is ahead of its time in its honest portrayal of an adolescent's
sexual awakening. For both its lead actor and its director, it
was a very auspicious beginning. Also to be noted is the adorable
presence of 14-year-old Marcel Mouloudji, who would make his name not
only as an actor but also as one of France's best-loved chansonniers.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Neglected by her father and robbed of her mother, Claudine grows up to be
an independently minded young lady at her girls' school in the country.
Now she is 15 and, on the threshold of adulthood, she is beginning to suffer
from the first mischievous blows of Cupid. How easily does she succumb
to the charms of the handsome young doctor, Dubois! She had never thought
that a man could be so attractive - she grabs any opportunity she can just
to have five minutes in his divine company. Up until then, Claudine
always preferred the company of her own sex, including her new teacher, Mademoiselle
Aimée Lanthenay.
The latter is so unlike the school's hard-to-please principal, Mademoiselle
Sergent, and her trusty lieutenant, Mademoiselle Griset. These two
barely human harridans only want to make life miserable for the girls under
their care. Mademoiselle Lanthenay is different. Still finding
her feet as a teacher, she has no difficulty befriending Claudine, and within
no time they are the closest of confidantes. Now, if there is one thing
that the fire-breathing Sergent cannot abide it is fraternisation between
her teachers and her pupils, so she relationship between Claudine and Aimée
doesn't go on for long before it is brutally extinguished. Alas, Claudine's
sentimental education has a few more hitches in store...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.