ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

gavin6942 A society lady (Maria Casarès) engineers a marriage between her lover (Paul Bernard) and a cabaret dancer (Élina Labourdette) who is essentially a prostitute.Not to say the acting isn't great or the direction isn't wonderful... because they both are. But this really comes down to a great script. This is the sort of bait and switch comedy that the French were great at. Diderot, Voltaire, Beaumarchais... there is a music to their writing that I have never found in any other nation's literature.This translates fairly well to the screen, and is a great farce about social standing and romance. Now, whether Agnes is a prostitute or not, I don't know. Although she clearly was in the original story, some say she is not in the film. Regardless, the humor of the comedy remains the same.

sveinpa This picture always had a great effect on me. It was the first Bresson I saw, some twenty-five years ago as the opener of a Bresson season at the local Cinemateque. Even all the masterpieces that followed could not quite erase the effect of Les dames du Bois de Boulogne as a very special picture on its own terms. It was cruel, certainly. And I liked that. With the luxury of the Criterion DVD I have seen it again a handful of times, but fail to find out exactly why it still affects me so. But then exactitude may not be what the picture is about. It is more the creeping up on you of some unknown animal. So no plot spoilers here, instead a metaphor warning might be called for. I think it is the tone of the picture that affects me. It is a subdued tone, lushly orchestrated as if from a distance. Not only by the discrete soundtrack of Jean-Jacques Grünewald - always playing softly in the background, yet always insistent - but by the devilishly clever way Helene designs her revenge on Jean. She is in no hurry and can afford the luxury of seeing her plot slowly starting to work. It is a cruel plot and it is cruel on the spectator as well. But along with the cruelty comes the dark pleasure of being confined and controlled by remote. It is a modern tragedy. No grand Aristotelian scenes but a steadily forward moving machine that works its evil wonders with great precision. If we allow ourselves to let go and face the music we are just as much in the power of Bresson as Jean and Agnes are in the power of Helene. It is almost as if you can hear the dissonant Tristan chord but distanced, lost or stuck somewhere, never being able again to give the emotions free reign. There is no magical potion. Instead there are the uncalled for flowers and the four enclosed walls that confine Agnes. She can still breathe in the stuffed air and dance within her small room, but it is exactly her former flowery and dancing days that now make her life outside seem impossible. Most of us do not share such a dilemma. Some get bored. It is to Bresson's credit that some of us still sense the tone. In Les anges du peche it was the convent that was an asylum from the outside world, in Les dames du Bois de Boulogne it is the barren apartment that, like the convent, is not quite the shelter the heroine would like it to be. In both these films the outside is closing in, but in Les dames it is helped on its way by the true femme fatale of Helene. Helene's design makes it the cruel picture it is. It also makes the second picture the more captivating of the two.

christopher-underwood There is much to enjoy in this simple tale of the wrath of a woman scorned, but 'timeless', 'masterpiece' or 'spellbinding', I rather think not. It is beautifully shot with memorable performances and an effective if barely believable dialogue. Early on the power and determination evidenced by a mere look from Maria Casares does give one hope that this might have the power of a vintage Bunuel. Unfortunately, for me, Bresson is far more interested in humiliation and misogyny than real passion and convincing evil. I know allowances have to be made for the passing time and changes morals but surely even within the movie as it stands little really adds up. Something of infatuation is illustrated but where is the wonderful portrayal of deep love that some strange folk detect?

dbdumonteil Till 1950,Robert Bresson used professional actors.This explains why those previous movies are much more accessible -and thus generally overlooked by the "true" RB connoisseurs ,this naive audience who is still thinking that French cinema did begin with him;this mindless belief was fueled by the director himself whose contempt for his colleagues was notorious ...And like it or not,It's one of his colleagues,Marcel Carné ,who provided Bresson with his star Maria Casarès,who was featured in the absolute chef-d'oeuvre of our French cinema "Les Enfants Du Paradis" .She played the part of Natalie and was not overshadowed by Arletty,which was quite a feat! In "les Dames...",Casares was extraordinary: in her last scenes ,when she spits her hate ,her contempt and when she savors her vengeance as she says :"You've married a hooker! I had you marry a hooker!" ,she mesmerizes her audience.After her lover had left her,she really became a spider spinning her web in which the two women and her ex would be caught up.Jean Cocteau wrote the dialog.Maria Casarès would become one of his favorite actresses:"Orphée" and "Le Testament d'Orphée".