Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne

Early Bresson movie set in France , when a boyfriend informs his girlfriend he's leaving her for another woman.This does not go down well with his jilted lover......

The British Film Institute DVD has a a good quality print of the film, with a short essay about the film itself. On the disc, there are brief biographies of the director and co-screenwriter Robert Bresson, the co-writer Jean Cocteau and Maria Casares, the actress who plays Helene in the film. The other bonus features are the original film poster, and a list of other Cocteau-related DVDs available from the BFI. On the whole this is a well packaged presentation of a very good film.

Evocative and enigmatic...class

Robert Bresson's 1945 film Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne is based on Diderot's story Jacques Le Fataliste, and was scripted by Jean Cocteau. The collaboration of Bresson (arch minimalist) and Cocteau (avant-garde artist, amongst many other things) would initially appear rather strange, but this film, Bresson's second feature pre-dating his later more distinctive style, works superbly well.The story is one of love, betrayal, deception and revenge as Helene (brilliantly played by Maria Casares) discovers, to her dismay, that her lover (and intended) Jean (Paul Bernard) has gone cold on the relationship. Determined to take her revenge on Jean, despite her continuing love for him, she sets up a meeting between him and Agnes (Elina Labourdette), a woman who has fallen on hard times from her ambition of becoming a ballerina and is living a life as a cabaret dancer and prostitute. Spurred on by Helene's assurance that Agnes is from a respectable background, Jean is deceived into proposing marriage to Agnes, with tragic consequences as Helene reveals to Jean, on their wedding day, Agnes' true colours.Whilst the film, aided by Cocteau's superb screenplay, is not typical Bresson, it has clear portents of Bresson's later style with its simple storyline and predominantly static approach to shooting. The black and white cinematography by Philippe Agostini (who achieved something similar in the earlier Le Jour Se Leve) depicts Paris brilliantly, and is reminiscent of other 'noir' classics such as Tourneur's Out Of The Past and even Bertolucci's The Conformist. On the acting front the film is carried by Maria Casares, for whom this was only her second feature, her first being her essentially supporting role as Nathalie in Marcel Carne's masterpiece Les Enfants Du Paradis - a truly remarkable two debut films! Casares plays with a brooding intensity and sexuality reminiscent at times of the great Kathleen Byron in Black Narcissus.A film that improves with each successive viewing.

LES DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE, (1945). In this black and white 86 minute classic of French cinema, admired director Robert Bresson follows the cruel machinations of rich and beautiful Parisian socialite Hélène (María Casares, Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) [DVD ]), a femme fatale who decides to destroy her shallow former beau Jean (Paul Bernard) after he admits he has lost interest in her. She is fueled by vengeance as she orchestrates a remarkably expensive scheme to trick Jean into marrying a "cabaret dancer" (Elina Labourdette). The film is an updated but reasonably accurate adaptation of the story of Madame de La Pommeraye from 18th century French author Denis Diderot's novel JACQUES LE FATALISTE. Famed French author/filmmaker Jean Cocteau, ( La Belle Et La Bete [DVD ], 1946;  Orphee [DVD ], 1949), contributed the film's lyrical dialog.This is a classic love triangle, but Bresson, ( A Man Escaped [DVD ],  Pickpocket [DVD] [1959 ] ), who, early in his career, has not yet fully developed his minimal storytelling style, does show some minimalist touches in telling its story, increasing its impact. All four lead actors -and in his future work, Bresson was seldom to work with professional actors--deliver fully-inhabited performances. Moreover, the director does seem to have been largely un-minimalist in the film's making. Interiors are well-decorated and luxurious; the women's wardrobes are ample and elegant, attributed to well-known French designers Gres and Schiaparelli. Cinematography, by Philip Agostini (creator of the memorable looks of  Le Jour Se Leve [DVD] [1939 ], and  Rififi [1954] [DVD ]), is outstanding: the picture is visually beautiful. Soundtrack, which Bresson would rarely use later, is by Jean-Jacques Grunenwald. Perhaps most notably, Bresson has also given the film a more-or-less happy Hollywood ending: after the wedding Helene cannot resist telling Jean about his new wife's secret past. But this malicious exposure will be followed by more surprises.LES DAMES is a brisk and beautiful treatment, by a greatly gifted director, of an old and interesting story. Worth seeing even if you're not particularly a Bressonian, if you've the tolerance for black and white and subtitles.