Film Review
Although he only made seven films over a five year period, Louis Delluc made
a significant impression on French cinema in the early 1920s and was one
of the driving forces behind the impressionist movement that comprised some
of the leading figures of the French Avant-Garde - Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier,
Germaine Dulac, René Clair and Jean Epstein. Before turning
to filmmaking, Delluc made his name as an influential critic and film theorist,
and it was his determination to move beyond the staid theatricality of early
cinema and instill a greater sense of emotional realism in his films that
made him such an inspiration to many filmmakers of his generation, in particular
Jean Renoir and Jean Epstein.
La Femme de nulle part (1922),
his last but one film, was to be the apotheosis of his art, a deceptively
simple melodrama that engages the emotions more intensely and stirs the heart
more forcefully than perhaps any other film up until this point. How
tragic it is that Delluc should fall seriously ill during the making of his
next film,
L'Inondation (1924), and die not long afterwards, aged
33.
As with his previous notable work,
Fièvre
(1921), Delluc takes the simplest of stories and gives it an extraordinary
emotional resonance by masterful, and incredibly subtle, application of the
techniques that became essential to the art of the impressionist filmmakers
- close-ups, superimposition, flashbacks and lighting effects. In contrast
to the more extravagant impressionistic style of his Avant-Garde contemporaries,
Delluc stays clear of showy overstatement and achieves a harmonious balance
of lyricism and naturalism. What sets
La Femme de nulle part
apart from other impressionist films is that you hardly notice its impressionistic
tropes - you are just carried along by the story, or rather the gentle interlacing
of the subjective experiences of the three main characters that make up the
story.
As in all of Delluc's films, his wife Ève Francis takes the lead role
and is perfectly suited for the part of the mysterious, almost wraith-like
woman of the title who, in revisiting her tortured past, finds a woman in
her own predicament twenty years previously. Francis was hardly the
subtlest of actors and today her style of acting would be judged somewhat
excessive but she has, to make up for this, a remarkable screen presence
and ability to project genuine feeling that was virtually unsurpassed in
her day. The long, lingering portraits of her that Delluc frames with
a devotion bordering on idolatry are the most sublime expression of a woman
who has been martyrised by love and yet still sees love as the most marvellous
of life's experiences. Only an actress of Francis's ability could sell
us this apparent contradiction without appearing ridiculous. You are
reminded of Renée Falconetti's Joan of Arc in Dreyer's
La Passion de Jeanne
d'Arc (1928) - Ève Francis's portrayal of a woman in thrall
to the ecstasy of love whilst it visibly eats away at her, until she is ultimately
reduced to a crushed broken shell, has a similar devastating impact.
La
Femme de nulle part is a film that moves you while you watch it and goes
on haunting you for long afterwards.
© James Travers 2016
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
At a house in the country not far Genoa, a husband tells his younger wife
that he must spend the next twenty-four hours away from home to take his
leave of a friend at the seaport. At this moment, a stranger - a woman
in her fifties - presents herself to the couple as a previous resident of
the house and asks if she may be permitted to spend a while in the grounds
to rekindle old memories. The husband kindly agrees and invites the
woman to spend the night in the house during his absence. That evening,
the stranger catches sight of the wife reading a letter and realises she
has a secret lover with whom she is planning to elope.
Having lived exactly the same scenario herself and suffered the consequences,
the stranger sympathises with the wife and urges her to reconsider, if only
for her young child. The wife's lover then appears and tells the young
woman that he will be waiting for her outside the gates of her villa in his
car. He swears that if she does not come to him he will kill himself.
As she reminisces on her own amorous infatuation, the love affair that whisked
her away from her family and robbed her of everything, the stranger has a
change of heart and appeals to the wife to submit to the call of love.
The young woman is hurrying away from the villa to join her lover when her
child comes running after her...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.