Story Movie
Hélène, a lady of high society, has vowed to take revenge on her lover Jean, who abandoned her. In a tavern she meets a friend who is on the edge of poverty and is forced to sell her daughter Agnès. Hélène takes custody of the unfortunate. Gives them money, an apartment, introduces them to Jean. He falls in love with a young girl, it comes to the wedding ... And at that moment Hélène strikes a fatal blow to Jean and Agnès, who happens to be "between two fires".
Review 4K Movie
It is not easy to find a more dangerous and insidious enemy than a rejected woman. A lady in furs, like the black diamond of the crown of French high society, is a priori incapable of trying on the role of an unwanted mistress. Yesterday she was next to a gentleman with refined manners and enthusiastic speech, and now he was replaced by a subject, painfully long to choose words, so as not to hurt the crystal female ego. Jean and Hélène's rupture was imminent, and though they had both denied such a denouement to the last, yet like a summer rain it came without prediction. “I will have my revenge on him"-in those three words concentrated a good pint of the strongest snake venom. Yes, Ellen will take revenge on the ex-cavalier who dared to stop desiring her, but she won't need a gleaming blade or a cold barrel to put her plan into action. Let those toys wait for rough male hands, and the socialite has found another weapon that has a chiseled figure, cheerful eyes, and the name Agnès, which is soft on the ear.
In one of his early paintings, Robert Bresson was at the starting point of his itinerary, important stages of which would become the famous “Diary of a Country Priest” and “Sentenced to Death Escaped, or The Spirit Winds Wherever It Wants.” However, even in “The Ladies of Bois de Boulogne” easily identifiable traits of the director, who has always preferred form to content. Bresson himself laconically noted that “the movie breathes life into the characters, and not the characters - in the movie”, so it was so important for him to convey the mood of the then trendsetters, and to show them first of all people, no less than the black subject to weaknesses and passions. Having played out the usual at first glance combination with a love triangle, Mr. Robert focused on the unhurried, like a soft melody, the development of relationships, which are destined for a dramatic denouement, because revenge must take place despite any circumstances. The focus of the lurking threat, the seductive Hélène, played by Maria Cazares, leaves no shadow of doubt about her ability to be ruthless, but in her bright, icy eyes one can detect a bit of pain, a woman's vulnerability, which the mistress carefully hides behind an outward gloss. The ostentatious magnanimity of the socialite, her concern for the former dancer Agnès and her mother can mislead even the most calculating strategist, which in love and gullible Jean is certainly not.
Bresson's deliberate refusal to shoot lavish parties, his focus on interiors gives each viewer the opportunity to feel like a guest in two worlds at once - in the luxurious apartments of the noble Hélène and the modest apartment of Agnès, and to fully appreciate the difference in the density of the aura of hypocrisy. Wandering between the two houses, Jean looks like a man who is late everywhere. He would be happy to follow his heart and give all his nature in the name of feeling, but it is as if he is constantly held by an unknown force. The source of this power, whose hair is blacker than night, rightly relies on her method of persuasion, which is always effective, because the people around her depend on her financially and partly morally. The countless passionate dialogues written by the inspired hand of Jean Cocteau, for all their verbosity, are valuable as confessions of people whose lives have to a certain extent come to a standstill. The significance of the masks worn by Hélène herself and the people of her circle, however, should not be exaggerated. High society intriguers from the very Louis XIII imagined themselves rulers of souls, fallen victims of banal need, but the power of natural passion of a motherless girl will not give a chance to recognize the surrender before the deadline.
The fateful meeting that started the multi-purpose combination took place in the Bois de Boulogne, but the true significance of this event becomes clear much later. Bresson is undoubtedly in the spirit of noir cruel to his heroes, not promising any of them peaceful walks near the waterfall. Reluctantly, cowardly piercing through the atmosphere of lies, passionate love is constantly contrasted with honed revenge, more and more justified and inevitable with each passing day, in the opinion of its apex. The symptomatology of Jean's feelings for Agnès, from complete indifference to blazing monologues, is subjected to a constant test of endurance, which is not exhausted by languishing in the rain waiting for his beloved. And Hélène's revenge is a full-fledged constant, which, once indicated, will disappear only after the fulfillment of the plan or a harsh repulse on the part of those dependent on the will of the socialite. Bresson, as it quickly becomes clear, really does not care about the outcome of the triple confrontation, it is more important to him the concentration of emotions that are looking for a way out, but not always found. The ladies of the Bois de Boulogne are left there, in a place where the orders of the upper classes do not work. Silent trees, a beautiful waterfall, paved lawns - all these are the faithful companions of lovers searching for themselves and their happiness in a heartless world where ladies like Hélène rule. The outcome of the clever combination seems easy to predict, but it is not predetermined, if people's hearts can find their way to each other and not turn down a wide avenue that culminates in a high-society revenge.
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