- SISTER CARRIE is an epic love story with a dark twist that takes place in Chicago, Montréal, and Paris in 1919.
- SISTER CARRIE is an epic love story with a dark secret. Its essential elements seem familiar: two people meet and fall in love, encounter many obstacles and are separated, then reunite in joy and despair. The romantic tragedy ostensibly takes place in Chicago, Montréal, and Paris in 1919, but its period, its locations, and even the story of the woman at its heart are elusive and illusory. Much of the story is told through the poetic but unreliable point of view of a man who once loved a woman named Carrie Lescaut.
The film begins with Carrie arriving at Union Station in Chicago. She stays with her sister and secures a factory position that requires her to work 14 hours a day for wages that do not meet her rent. We learn along the way that dark life challenges preceded Carrie's trip to Illinois, and that she has worked as a prostitute.
At the factory, Carrie labors under a quiet-spoken Foreman who is unfulfilled by his work, spending much of his time wishing he had been a classical painter or musician or a romantic poet or novelist. The Foreman fancies himself in love with Carrie and adores that she speaks French. He obsesses over her, seeing her everywhere as a kind of phantom, walking the streets of Chicago and even in the apartment he shares with his two children and pregnant wife. One night, after seeing the silhouette of a man running through an alley, The Foreman inexplicably murders his wife. He confesses to the murder and is sent to jail for life.
Carrie loses her factory position. She is forced to go back to the street trade to ensure she can make ends meet. This is when she encounters Armand Duval on the street. He takes her in.
Armand works for his wealthy mother as the manager of La Rotonde Chicago, a well-regarded restaurant and saloon. When his New York-based mother learns that his son is "keeping a prostitute," she comes to Chicago and forecloses on the relationship, threatening to fire her son from his job and ordering him to move Carrie out by the next day. Armand responds by stealing from the restaurant safe. He runs away with Carrie on a train to Montréal.
Carrie is deeply upset at what he's done but adjusts to their situation. Armand purchases passage by ocean liner and train to Paris. The lovers have no money and no options. They try to start a new life in Paris, but Armand's job quest is unsuccessful. Carrie finds humble work as a flower girl in the Bois de Boulogne, a large Paris park that has been known historically as a place of prostitution. It looks for a time that she is going back to her old work, and Armand is devastated.
One evening he comes home and finds that Carrie is gone. Armand slides into a spiral of poverty and despair. He attempts to kill himself in their Paris apartment, but is rescued.
Carrie, meanwhile, auditions at local theatres. She faces rejection at every turn until she is hired at Folies Bèrgere, an erotic revue and magic show frequented by higher-class men and women. She takes the stage there and transforms into a dancing Josephine Baker, Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot.
Armand finds out about the show and comes to see it. The sight of Carrie deepens his romantic wounds. The show closes after just one night and Carrie is lost to him again.
Time passes and Armand receives a letter. We follow him to Auvers-sur-Oise, a town in the French countryside. He finds Carrie in an ancient building, emaciated and dying from consumption. He makes gentle love to her at her request and she asks him afterward to walk with her into the fields above Auvers.
In the fields, she lies down to rest, Armand by her side, and they talk. Carrie reveals that Armand's mother visited her privately in Paris and convinced her that it was in her son's best interest that she leave him, or he would be hobbled professionally and socially for life for having married a prostitute. Armand is devastated at learning of her sacrifice. The sun sets. It takes Armand some time to realize that his trembling lover is not just fatally ill but that she is in fact dying right now, at his side in a wheat field. He's with her in her final moments.
When she ceases breathing, Armand writhes in pain over her body, then - perfectly and inexplicably - performs a balletic dance of mourning over her body. He abandons his will to live. He decides that he will stay with her until he himself dies of exhaustion or starvation. He spends long hours with his arms around her dead body, kissing her cold but still lovely face, as intimate as he can now be with her, and awaits his own death.
Armand survives, but the ending of SISTER CARRIE gently suggests a dark truth about this tale of the noble love of a young man and the tragic death of a young woman, little sister Carrie, who rose from rural American poverty to stardom on the grandest stage of Paris.
Armand's voice has borne witness throughout the film to an array of powerful feelings of ecstatic love, jealousy, and grief for Carrie. What Armand never tells us is that he is himself a fiction. He is indeed another man pretending to be Armand Duval, the star-crossed lover of La Dame aux Camélias.
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