Raphaël ou le débauché (1971)
Directed by Michel Deville

Film Review

Raphaël ou le Débauché begins with a party of women rising early in the morning to welcome the end of summer.  Autumn is in the air and with it a vague impression of death and decay that miraculously makes the fading transient beauties of the world appear even more lovely than they had been in the midst of summer.  Just as autumn is a transitional season so is this film one of transition for its director Michel Deville, from the light and effervescent comedies that mark out the first phase of his career - Adorable Menteuse (1962), À cause, à cause d'une femme (1963), L'Appartement des filles (1963) - to the much darker and more introspective films that were to follow.  Autumn is our one last chance to savour the divine beauties of the world as we contemplate the darkness that lies ahead. 

That Raphaël ou le Débauché marks a turning point in Michel Deville's career owes as much to his maturation as a filmmaker as to the fact that this was the last film he scripted with Nina Companeez, his screenwriting partner for over a decade.  Companeez would embark on her own directing career not long afterwards with Faustine et le bel été (1972), leaving Deville free to tackle darker themes in a surprisingly bleak and caustic series of films, which include sordid thrillers such as Péril en la demeure (1985) and distinctive minimalist dramas like Le Paltoquet (1986).

As the pious heroine who is willing to sacrifice her purity for love Françoise Fabian is at her most compelling and radiant, and there is probably no other film in her remarkable career where she manages to leave such a deep and lasting impression.  How effective a contrast she makes with Maurice Ronet, an actor whose innate tenebrous quality (an aura of melancholy that suggests a too keen awareness of his own mortality) suits him better for the title role of Raphaël de Loris better than any other he was called upon to play on screen.  Ronet and Fabian are natural opposites, the night and the day that can never meet except in the fleeting moments of dawn and dusk.  Fabian's character Aurore is aptly named on two counts - after Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, and Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty - whilst Ronet's Raphaël is a bitterly ironic appellation, deriving from the angel of healing in Judeo-Christian theology.  It is the obvious sense of separation between these two solitary characters, a gulf that cannot be crossed even by a tightrope walker as fearless and adept as Raphaël, that is ultimately what makes the film so devastating.

Raphaël ou le Débauché is, arguably, the most profound, the most humane and the most perfectly crafted of all Michel Deville's films.  It has the stunning production values of the director's previous (far more light-hearted) historical romp Benjamin ou les Mémoires d'un puceau (1968), but it is written and performed with even more subtlety and feeling.  The music of Vincenzo Bellini which accompanies the film from start to finish adds to its aching romanticism, and the set designs and photography are of such quality that every shot is a small work of art.  There is an effortless poetry to this film that renders its account of an impossible romance exquisitely poignant.  It is simply one of the few genuine film masterpieces to have been made in France in the 1970s, and deserves to be recognised as such.

Film Synopsis

In 1830, Aurore de Chéroy is a young widow who lives a simple but contented life on her country estate in France.  A devout Christian, she devotes herself to charitable works and spurns proposals of marriage from such men as the selfish and cynical Horace de Granville.  One day, Aurore  encounters a far less virtuous creature, Raphaël de Loris, a debauched young man who seeks only to fill his empty existence by over-indulging in the hollow pleasures of the flesh.  Raphaël and Aurore could not be more different, but from the moment they meet they feel strongly drawn to one another.  Is it love that Aurore is experiencing, or merely sinful desire?  At first, the widow is disgusted by her feelings for the drunken libertine, but gradually she comes to love, even desire him.  By this time, Raphaël's own feelings for Aurore are such that he knows he can never add her name to his long list of conquests.  Realising that Raphaël will never meet her on her own ground, Aurore moves onto his and takes up the life of the libertine herself.  Far from being pleased by this act of self-sacrifice, Raphaël is revolted and rejects the widow forever.  Aurore punishes herself by marrying the odious Horace de Granville...