film
La Femme Publique
Here’s a film that has been highly regarded among buffs since its 1984 release, one with blatant abstractions that are readily defended as inventive. Having finally seen it, I couldn’t agree more, and perhaps the experience is sweetened from such a long wait. Now enjoying its debut among English-speakers, La Femme Publique is again available and is, you will agree with me, among the best transfers this side of BluRay since the advent of the DVD.
Andrezej Zulawski’s films have been no stranger to controversy, and while comparatively tame when propped against his own Possession, among others, the restlessness comes from something more fundamental. It’s a film to be approached with a sense of detached voyeurism, albeit resulting with a nearly inexplicable sense of paranoia. That in mind, Marie-Sophie Dubus’ editing is as complicit as Zulawski’s visionary handling of a script drowning in complexity.
Looking strictly at the surface, La Femme Publique could rightly be called a movie about making movies. Among that genre, we most readily call up 8 ½, and Altman’s The Player, two films which, at their core, are their directors’ respective self-salutes to the auteur. The auteur in Zulawski is sufficiently evident in his sixth film, but he distances himself in lieu of a more subjective dissection of what he calls, “destiny.” Here the filmmaking process is secondary, serving both as subplot, and organically as the alter-environment through which fates are played out.
The story involves a young, struggling actress and the men and events surrounding her attempts to fame in early 80’s Paris. Ethel (the astoundingly beautiful Valerie Kaprisky) is all but ignorant to the deliberate motives of others, yet finds herself a willing accessory to complex, sometimes un-interpretable matters. She becomes chiefly involved with two men, each with independent states of being; one a reprehensible and supercilious film director, the other a downtrodden victim of his own passions destined for less than the little he currently has. The entanglement of their stories is seemingly the cornerstone of the film, but don’t bet on it.
The cryptic translation of a specific, underlying theme is the key strength to La Femme Publique. It is through a loose, but crafty retelling of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed that Zulawski’s film ascends from quirky to profound. By accident and through circumstances never to be completely fleshed out, Ethel finds herself the subject of film director Kesling’s (the exceptional Francis Huster pre-channeling a Paul Bettany cannibalization of James Spader) interest – both for the lead role and as babe du jour – during his picture’s pre-production.
The most palpable element from the novel is Kesling, who at once channels The Possessed’s anti-social madman, Nicolai, and who tirelessly approaches the same fate. Kesling’s film is heavy with dialogue concerning the destruction and re-engineering of socialist idealism, largely influenced by the self-destructing socio-political mechanisms in 1984 France, and the paranoia of surrounding bloc revolutionaries. Zulawski pens a chaotic web of ideologies in invisible ink that never transcends beyond hazy subplot, yet without it Ethel’s character could not possibly succeed.
Ethel is a sometimes pitiful capsule, shielded by the shroud of Europe’s identity crisis from a more forgiving humanity. Zulawski appears less interested in the characters and themes of the novel than its darkly pregnant, revolutionary atmosphere. It is in this context that some compassion for Ethel is warranted.
Ethel’s character isn’t one to be wished on even the most experienced actresses, and Kaprisky (then at the ripe age of 22) comes through with amazing force in what had to be one of the most challenging roles of the decade. Following an ill-received reception here and abroad for a lukewarm, unnecessary remake of Godard’s Breathless, Kaprisky was hired to portray Ethel in the face of much contention. Ethel’s complexity in the script must have been evident, and one has to assume the actress took on the role with a certain fatalism. The dramatic achievement is nonetheless astounding.
In a transient scene during the first reel, we learn more about Ethel than from any other episode. In a claustrophobic exchange with her mother, Ethel is physically and emotionally intoxicated in a trying effort to revisit the family suffering brought on by her imprisoned father. This in mind, her efforts to make ends meet through nude cavorting sessions in front of a creepy photographer (one session of which ends less than desirably for Ethel) have less sting and shed more light to her struggle.
The story propagates as a loose narrative, stitched with vivid scenarios and stark emotionality of the characters, and questions abound. How does Ethel’s family situation impact her dealings with these men? What significance does the fatherlike writer hold, when we meet him only twice and under bizarre circumstances? And not least, at what point does Dostoevsky’s text seep out of Kesling’s translation and into the whole of Zulawski’s larger narrative?
Zulawski affords a wealth of information to process, yet leaves us with few tools to tie them together. This is a good portion of the film’s intrigue. The challenge taken on to make sense of Ethel’s existence and to penetrate the fabric of the environment in which she moves along.
Rather than directly interpret the Dostoevsky story, Zulawski interweaves certain critical elements from the novel to give light to the political atmosphere of Europe at the time. A political subplot involves the attempt on the life of a Lithuanian religious figure, with philosophies pulled from the novel painting a nihilist backdrop in which men can justify their dreadful ideas. Ironically, the only soul or conscience detectable among the characters lies with Ethel, who is at least motivated through her own confused perseverance.
It is in this confusion she finds herself romantically involved with Kesling. A practicing sociopath, his nature is to control, and so he proceeds relentlessly to break Ethel down to her rawest elements, all in the interest of his film and to be loved as puppeteer is to puppet. Ethel finds temporary solace in the complicated, Milan (Lambert Wilson), but can only enter his life by impersonating another. And so the plot thickens.
Underlying these relationships, Ethel’s objective is the satisfaction that acting will bring her, and without any clichéd materialistic agenda. Driven with almost biblical resolve, we witness her in the worst of situations, those moral impasses brought on by personal struggle.
The interest of the viewer is in learning how life plays out for Kesling, Milan, and – most importantly – Ethel. The nihilistic themes and outcome are indeed the core of the film’s intrigue. Paired with the socialist air that circulates through each vibrant frame, the fullness of the characters offers a fresh look at humanity all the way to La Femme Publique’s Altman-esque conclusion.
Welcome newcomer MondoVision offers its first print in standard and 2000-set limited editions. Special features include director commentary track, film set and still gallery, original trailer, and an exclusive interview with Andrzej Zulawski. [a note on the soundtrack – how Zulawski and Dubus were able to work such music is worth its own study]. Transfer employed high-def methods for NTSC format on dual-layer DVD.
~Alan Jones
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How nice not to see those ugly mugs from Brute Force every time I log on!
Wow, nice write-up Al - yet another film I still have yet to discover.. thanks
Did you see Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games”, Dan? Just curious.
Dan, word is an 11NOV08 release.
Discussion here on the distribution of the DVD.