La Demoiselle d’honneur (The Bridesmaid, 2004) dir. Claude Chabrol
This engaged my interest fitfully because while the actors-performances hold some interest the bases for Philippe’s attachment to Senta seem nearly as off kilter as criminally sociopathic Senta—but they are not quite a match so why he remains so needy is simply to be accepted as part of his character, including his quirky interest in the bust-statue, and the somewhat side plots of his sisters and his devotion to his mother…
The Man I Love (1946)* dir. Raoul Walsh
Slight-minor plot spoilers ahead in terms of the film's tone and arc.
Distinctive because Ida Lupino is so assured in her role of ‘torch singer’ Petey Brown who shows brave commitment-devotion to family (though of course this is ideologically valued-'proper' as facet of redeeming her unmarried way of life) and more important because she doesn’t lose her edge and hard-won sense of what’s at stake even as she is vulnerable to love…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast, 1938)* dir. Jean Renoir
Geoffrey O’Brien describes the film’s opening as beginning “on a note of heroic exhilaration, in which the natural world and the power of technology are wedded through the closely coordinated labor—effected through glances and sign language—of two men” (see weblink to O’Brien’s essay below) but I felt, perhaps in anticipation, that the men’s labor was already steeped in habitude, in some degree of submission—albeit also demonstrating competence and control—to the…
