Taking part in a poll for the best films of 1966,I decided to check if the Arrow short films of Walerian Borowczyk box set had any titles from the year. Recently seeing the terrific Guy de Maupassant adaptation Chez Maupassant: Le petit fut (2008-also reviewed) by fellow auteur Claude Chabrol, I got set to see the "Boro" take on Maupassant.
View on the film:
The last (non-TV) short film she would appear in before moving to features,Ligia Branice gives a heart-wrenching performance as Rosalie.
Standing in front of a plain white backdrop and a simple structure giving the impression of a witness stand, Branice makes each line in her monologue carry a heaviness of Rosalie baring it all in court, where each glance she makes to the floor away from the camera, allowing the raw emotion to hang in the air.
Toning down the free-flowing nature of his past shorts, writer/directing auteur Walerian Borowczyk superbly adapts Guy de Maupassant's short story Prudent Rosalie into a monologue form, drawing thumbnail sketches of the events which led to Rosalie killing her newborn twins, whilst holding the focus on the broken soul current state of Rosealie.
Slowly panning the camera up objects as his wife Ligia/ Rosalie sobs, "Boro" continues to brilliantly expand upon his stop-motion animation styling which had played a prominent part in his earlier shorts.
Borowczyk displays objects such as a newspaper being torn and knitting being unwound,which get changed from the abstract, disconnected objects they would have been in his earlier shorts, to being representative textures inter-cut in the tale of Rosalie.
View on the film:
The last (non-TV) short film she would appear in before moving to features,Ligia Branice gives a heart-wrenching performance as Rosalie.
Standing in front of a plain white backdrop and a simple structure giving the impression of a witness stand, Branice makes each line in her monologue carry a heaviness of Rosalie baring it all in court, where each glance she makes to the floor away from the camera, allowing the raw emotion to hang in the air.
Toning down the free-flowing nature of his past shorts, writer/directing auteur Walerian Borowczyk superbly adapts Guy de Maupassant's short story Prudent Rosalie into a monologue form, drawing thumbnail sketches of the events which led to Rosalie killing her newborn twins, whilst holding the focus on the broken soul current state of Rosealie.
Slowly panning the camera up objects as his wife Ligia/ Rosalie sobs, "Boro" continues to brilliantly expand upon his stop-motion animation styling which had played a prominent part in his earlier shorts.
Borowczyk displays objects such as a newspaper being torn and knitting being unwound,which get changed from the abstract, disconnected objects they would have been in his earlier shorts, to being representative textures inter-cut in the tale of Rosalie.