I loved the latest from Mélanie Laurent (also an actress. I wrote about one of her moments in Inglourious Basterds – a great “teaching tool” for anyone who wants to learn something about acting and technique). Laurent is also a director – I reviewed Breathe for Ebert. Her latest is far more ambitious – a period drama. But she shows her chops in this. It really works. I reviewed for Ebert.
This movie really got me going. Dylan’s line that the best thing you can do is inspire someone really applied here for me!
I liked some of the echoes between Eugénie and Geneviève – both taking pleasure in quietly reading and smoking. Both betrayed by a loved one when Eugénie’s gift was proven a true one. The visuals were wonderful, the “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière” tableau was great. The still life shots that you mentioned in your review were beautiful.
I loved the Eugénie’s first interview with a doctor, and her question about why Bernadette was believed and she wasn’t. I just floated away thinking about William Blake seeing angels in a tree when he was nine. What sort of belief, accommodation, attitude did I owe him? Did my love for his poetry and illustrations mean I owed him anything? Kindness, acceptance of humanity, a suspension of disbelief, a suspension of my own dogmas. Mélanie’s empathy machine was producing at a high output in that scene. Even if I wasn’t moored to the exactly what was on the screen at that point.
I don’t doubt that Charcot was a brilliant guy, or that Geneviève’s father was a highly intelligent man – but their cleverness was only in service of their theories and not to be swayed by unaccountable facts. Especially coming from women. Credentials mean you don’t have to learn anything new about the world. Wisdom stops at some point.
I don’t know if you’ve read the book, but I picked it up and gobbled it down in the last two days. There was no scene in the book where the mute woman began to sing in chapel. That was sweet and charming, funny and warm. So glad it was in the movie.
I just enjoyed the movie so much. It made me extra suggestible: the blue in Geneviève’s dress made me want to watch Kieslowski’s Blue again. I hadn’t seen it in a while. Some coincidental resonances there with Julie taking pleasure in being in the sun at one point, and Eugénie craving sunlight during the terrible Eclipse Game segment. Eugénie had her time of displacement, but not for the movie-length like Julie. Juliet Binoche, god what an actress!
I then watched Breathe. I hadn’t seen it before. That was excellent. It was a long French evening!
I read a little about the painting “A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière.” I understand that Freud had a copy placed over the analysis couch in his Vienna office and then London office. What can one say?
I also read a bit about Allan Kardec, the nom de plume of Hippolyte Rivail, who wroteThe Spirit’s Book that Eugénie was given in the bistro. Apparently before becoming interested in spiritualism in his 50’s, he had a lot of influence on education in France. Per Wikipedia he is “the founder of spiritism.” And per Wikipedia, Charcot is “the founder of modern neurology.” So Victoria Mas kinda set up a battle of the founders.
At any rate, I really enjoyed the movie and all the fallout from it.
Mutecypher – so glad you saw it! and Breathe!
I love her as an actress but I am becoming an equal fan of her directing. Mad Women’s Ball is her kicking it up a notch and I love to see it. These kinds of movies just are not made anymore by the mainstream “Hollywood” industry.
// Credentials mean you don’t have to learn anything new about the world. Wisdom stops at some point. //
Yeah. I truly think many of these people were trying to help. But what they failed to recognize is that these women were not sick – they were having a completely RATIONAL response to the world that kept them all bound up. It was a sick society and women responded accordingly. Of course there was true mental illness as well – but the “hysteria” thing was basically trumped-up charges – Have you seen the movie Hysteria by the way? It treats this subject with irony and comedy – which seems like it might not work but it is wonderful! I interviewed Hugh Dancy onstage at Ebertfest when the screen filmed there! Even though it’s a comedy, it really does make its points about what was really going on.
I really loved in Mad Women’s Ball that Eugenie’s visions etc are treated almost matter of factly. They exist. The movie isn’t about interrogating her experience. It is what it is. The story is really how Genevieve is drawn to whatever wisdom Eugenie can impart -leaving rationalism behind – to try to find healing.
How about that evil Nurse Ratched?? God she was awful. I loved how Genevieve was set up to make you think she was going to be evil or stern or unfeeling – but then it turns out there was a real sinister wacko running around. Sadistic.
Again, so glad you checked it out and had such a rich response to it!
//I truly think many of these people were trying to help. But what they failed to recognize is that these women were not sick//
This makes me think of a T. S. Eliot quote I use in my rotating set of email signatures, “Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.” They are the most educated people in the room, and their intentions are good. What else matters?
I think Mélanie and her cowriters improved on the book in some ways. The Nurse Ratched character wasn’t in it. I thought she was a very good addition, the character in the book who caught Genevieve was an unnamed nurse, “a plump, dark-haired girl with little character to her face.” The timeline in the book is very compressed (chapters are headed with dates); Eugénie is taken to Salpêtrière on March 4, 1885 and then Geneviève helps her escape on March 18, 1885, two week later. The movie has the Mad Women’s Ball as “months away” when Eugénie is admitted. That seemed like a more reasonable timeline, and allows for the awful Eclipse Game to be inflicted on Eugénie. I think having a real villain who interacts with Eugénie was an improvement. And more of the Mad Women in the ward were given character. I don’t want to short change the book, I enjoyed it.
//The story is really how Genevieve is drawn to whatever wisdom Eugenie can impart -leaving rationalism behind – to try to find healing.// I think the changes highlighted this.
I like Hugh Dancy, I’ll have to check out Hysteria.