Bresson’s second feature film, the plot is as simple as this: a woman takes revenge to her ex-lover by coaxing him into marry a young girl with an ill reputation, but the movie emanates a classical elegance through a meager four-player game.
A young socialite Hélene (Casarès), sensing that the romance between her and her lover Jean (Bernard) has plateaued out, weasels her way into the latter’s blithe confession by feigning that she wants to take a step back from their liaison, a cunning move to elicit the truth without staging a scene, in fact, she completely gains Jean’s trust and admiration by her ostensible munificence and sensibility, little does he know, the tidings is a hammer blow to her.
The best cure to overcome a broken heart is to retaliate, so Hélene plumps for a limber and comelycabaret dancer Agnès (Labourdette) as her bait to inveigle Jean into the trap, while keeping both oblivious of her true motive and the nexus is to keep a lid on Agnès’ demimonde background from Jean until the wedding day. The whole plot is trenchantly actualized by a concatenation of conversations between various parties, playing up verbal interaction as an engaging fencing contest. Bresson lays bare its psychological signification through his able players (his last film cast by professionals). An inscrutable Maria Casarès oozes a stunning sophistication well beyond her age, every line she delivers can be savored with connotations ranging from manipulation to circumspectly veiled threats (dialogue is supervised by none other than Jean Cocteau), she revels in subtle moderations of her countenance and never lets up into theatricality.
Elina Labourdette’s Agnès, by comparison, guilelessly wears her hearts on her sleeve and makes heavy weather of her resistance from Jean which belies her abject capitulation in the first place, there is no reason for a young girl balks at a suave suitor like Jean if not for her ignoble past, andPaul Bernard gaily epitomizes a man’s naiveté and predictability despite the fact that it is after all, him who has the say-so in the fallout, not these two polarized lollapaloozas from the opposite sex, orLucienne Bogaert’s Madame D., Agnès’ careworn mother. Amicrocosm of our patriarchal hierarchy is under Bresson’s sober scrutiny here.
The ending is tinged with romanticism (through the illumining light on Agnès’ impeccable visage), resuscitated by love over prejudice, the pair might indeed obtain true happiness after the event, the film sends a liberal-minded message and bears testimony of Bresson’s aptitude of grappling with something ablaze with connivance, melancholy and lachrymosity, a rather disparate frontage, but not entirely less crafted, in juxtaposition with his more distinguished and groundbreaking masterworks.
referential points: Bresson’s L’ARGENT (1983, 7.2/10), THE DEVIL, PROBABLY (1977, 7.0/10).
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