This picture always had a great effect on me. It was the first Bresson I saw, some twenty-five years ago as the opener of a Bresson season at the local Cinemateque. Even all the masterpieces that followed could not quite erase the effect of Les dames du Bois de Boulogne as a very special picture on its own terms. It was cruel, certainly. And I liked that. With the luxury of the Criterion DVD I have seen it again a handful of times, but fail to find out exactly why it still affects me so. But then exactitude may not be what the picture is about. It is more the creeping up on you of some unknown animal. So no plot spoilers here, instead a metaphor warning might be called for.
I think it is the tone of the picture that affects me. It is a subdued tone, lushly orchestrated as if from a distance. Not only by the discrete soundtrack of Jean-Jacques Grünewald - always playing softly in the background, yet always insistent - but by the devilishly clever way Helene designs her revenge on Jean. She is in no hurry and can afford the luxury of seeing her plot slowly starting to work. It is a cruel plot and it is cruel on the spectator as well. But along with the cruelty comes the dark pleasure of being confined and controlled by remote. It is a modern tragedy. No grand Aristotelian scenes but a steadily forward moving machine that works its evil wonders with great precision. If we allow ourselves to let go and face the music we are just as much in the power of Bresson as Jean and Agnes are in the power of Helene. It is almost as if you can hear the dissonant Tristan chord but distanced, lost or stuck somewhere, never being able again to give the emotions free reign. There is no magical potion. Instead there are the uncalled for flowers and the four enclosed walls that confine Agnes. She can still breathe in the stuffed air and dance within her small room, but it is exactly her former flowery and dancing days that now make her life outside seem impossible. Most of us do not share such a dilemma. Some get bored. It is to Bresson's credit that some of us still sense the tone.
In Les anges du peche it was the convent that was an asylum from the outside world, in Les dames du Bois de Boulogne it is the barren apartment that, like the convent, is not quite the shelter the heroine would like it to be. In both these films the outside is closing in, but in Les dames it is helped on its way by the true femme fatale of Helene. Helene's design makes it the cruel picture it is. It also makes the second picture the more captivating of the two.
I think it is the tone of the picture that affects me. It is a subdued tone, lushly orchestrated as if from a distance. Not only by the discrete soundtrack of Jean-Jacques Grünewald - always playing softly in the background, yet always insistent - but by the devilishly clever way Helene designs her revenge on Jean. She is in no hurry and can afford the luxury of seeing her plot slowly starting to work. It is a cruel plot and it is cruel on the spectator as well. But along with the cruelty comes the dark pleasure of being confined and controlled by remote. It is a modern tragedy. No grand Aristotelian scenes but a steadily forward moving machine that works its evil wonders with great precision. If we allow ourselves to let go and face the music we are just as much in the power of Bresson as Jean and Agnes are in the power of Helene. It is almost as if you can hear the dissonant Tristan chord but distanced, lost or stuck somewhere, never being able again to give the emotions free reign. There is no magical potion. Instead there are the uncalled for flowers and the four enclosed walls that confine Agnes. She can still breathe in the stuffed air and dance within her small room, but it is exactly her former flowery and dancing days that now make her life outside seem impossible. Most of us do not share such a dilemma. Some get bored. It is to Bresson's credit that some of us still sense the tone.
In Les anges du peche it was the convent that was an asylum from the outside world, in Les dames du Bois de Boulogne it is the barren apartment that, like the convent, is not quite the shelter the heroine would like it to be. In both these films the outside is closing in, but in Les dames it is helped on its way by the true femme fatale of Helene. Helene's design makes it the cruel picture it is. It also makes the second picture the more captivating of the two.