Gabrielle [DVD]

Isabelle Huppert is one of the great actresses of French cinema. She is as beautiful in her early 50's in "Gabrielle," released in 2005, as she was in her late 20's in "La Truite," released in 1982. She is a perfect choice to play Gabrielle Hervey, a woman who leaves a note to her husband that she has left him for another man; and then returns only three hours later.Huppert, as Gabrielle Hervey, is beautiful and enigmatic as her husband, Jean (played by Pascal Gregory), spends the rest of the evening and the next day trying to discover why she left him; for whom she left him, and what brought her back. He also wants to discover whether they can be reconciled. If so, on what terms. In the tortuous emotional process that follows Jean is impelled to discover the real person to whom he is married.Jean Hervey is an accomplished and extremely wealthy 19th century business man. According to his own account success in business has come naturally and easily for him, at least until he finds Gabrielle's letter. His house is large and beautifully lavish with a hint of "Citizen Kane" in its gauche overabundance of sculpture. Overseeing this material world is the masterpiece of his possessions, Gabrielle.In the opening sequence, filmed in black and white, Jean mentally brags to the viewer of his success as he walks home from the train station. He contemplates Gabrielle on this walk and the viewer is ushered into a dinner party previously given by the Herveys, filmed in color. Huppert's Gabrielle is radiant and enigmatic to all as the hostess of the dinner party. Gabrielle is especially a riddle to Jean who admires her ability to help him achieve the status he seeks at the center of a high society which he disdains, but requires as a trophy of his material success.As the table guests engage in vigorous repartee Jean basks quietly in glory at the head of the dinner table. He admires Gabrielle's own deft, brief and perfectly hosted conversation. At the same time it is obvious that Jean has no idea of what moves her; nor does he really seem to care to explore her inner lights. She plays the role he has assigned her as he would any other instrument or employee of his business. His complacency with this arrangement after ten years of marriage is evident. When he arrives home he reads Gabrielle's letter, tears at his hair in shock, and then finds to his amazement that she has returned. Her return is a masterfully crafted scene.The destruction of his well planned and ordered life leads to gripping tension and drama as Jean repeatedly theorizes, guesses, cajoles and pleads with Gabrielle to reveal what led to her to flee and then return. The threat of violence against the petite and physically fragile Gabrielle subsists as subtext throughout. Jean is totally dumfounded that his assumptions about Gabrielle have been destroyed by her actions. One suspects that equally frightening for Jean is that her unpredictable actions raise uncomfortable questions about other fundamental assumptions Jean has made about his life.Yet Gabrielle is neither intimidated nor particularly revelatory in reacting to Jean's efforts to learn the answers to the questions posed by her brief disappearance and return. Gabrielle rarely reveals vulnerability; and then usually only to her servants. Jean is only given small hints why Gabrielle acted as she did. Piecing together those hints to discover Gabrielle's motivation and true character is one of the most interesting aspects of the movie for the viewer.The reason she gives for returning is more than shocking and deliciously ironic. The gorgeous dénouement in the bedroom, which silently announces the terms upon which Gabrielle agrees to return, and Jean's reaction to it, is a great ending for a great movie.As noted by others, "Gabrielle" is based upon the novella "The Return" by Joseph Conrad. That is to say that action, like the lighting, only supplements the dialogue. The viewer has to work to appreciate this movie but the effort is well worth it.

Love Isabelle

Excellent

Made after Conrad's short story "Return", this is a story of a wealthy, married couple living in predictable, stable marriage surrounded by luxury, art, salon gatherings and -- emotional restraint. Husband is a self made rich man who finds all beauty around him to be something to collect and adore from a distance. Wife on the other hand is the epithomy of class, good manners, classical beauty. Isabel Huppert is known for being able to deliver solid performance for complicated characters. Her face, beauty and the way she moves enhances the regal surroundings of the household visitors she moves around, dress she is wearing, music she listens to. But when she leaves all that for another man and then comes back to her husband within less than two hours, it opens up all the questions between her, her spouse, her relationship with the house servants, and weekly guests that are regulars at their salon. The visual beauty of the movie turns inside out to the beauty of the words and language between all these individuals that are part of such traumatic development in the household considered to be content on the way things ought to be in the high society of the 20th century. This movie is developing almost in slow motion where viewer becomes willing participant in torturing revelation about husband and wife, power switch in their marriage and realization of the truth that eventually distroys them and their relationship completely. P. Greggory and I. Huppert mash so well in their battle with words, it is absolutely tantalizing to let go of them for even a minute.

***1/2Based on "The Return" by Joseph Conrad, "Gabrielle" tells the story of a woman in turn-of-the-century Paris who rebels against a loveless marriage.Jean Hervey is a successful newspaper publisher whose life is ruled far more by social obligation and ritual than by emotion or passion. He extends this philosophy to all areas of his life, even to his own wife, whom he sees less as a person with a basic human need for intimacy and passion, than as an attractive ornament to be placed beside all the other artwork in his impressive collection of Greek statuary. He even proclaims rather proudly - as if it were evidence of his imperviousness to the weakness of the flesh - that, though he and his wife do share the same bedroom, they sleep in different beds. Yet, he is not above deluding himself into believing that he actually loves her, although he is the first to admit that real love requires far too much effort to really be worth his time. He takes pride in her "placid" nature, which he feels serves him well in her function as hostess for the dinner parties he throws for his friends like clockwork every Thursday night. One day, however, Jean's studiously ordered world is shattered when he finds a note from Gabrielle informing him that she has run off with another man. A few moments later, though, Gabrielle mysteriously returns home, having been unable to make that final break for reasons not entirely fathomable either to herself or to us. The remainder of the film is spent examining the couple's efforts to cope with the situation.This theme - of an aristocratic, free-spirited woman trapped in a figurative gilded cage by either the man in her life or society as a whole - was not exactly a novel one even at the time the story was written, but what separates "Gabrielle" from similar works is its unique concentration on the man instead of the woman, on HIS repression and inadequacies rather than hers. This leads to a conclusion rich in irony as Jean, the passionless purveyor of propriety, becomes ever more eaten up by his own jealousies and obsessions. Jean reveals much of what he's thinking through voiceover narration, as Gabrielle serves as a catalyst for his own emotional revolution.If "Gabrielle" reminds us of anything, it is of a film by Ingmar Bergman, one in which the characters talk out the minutiae of their relationships and their innermost feelings and thoughts at almost agonizing length - tedious to some in the audience, perhaps, but fascinating to others. Patrice Chereau and Anne-Louise Trividic's literate screenplay plumbs the depths of the two souls involved, while Chereau's direction keeps things moving by employing a camera that sweeps with almost reckless abandon through the dusky rooms and crowded salons where the action takes place.Isabelle Huppert and Pascal Greggory are perfectly cast foils as the husband and wife for whom "love" is no longer a viable option. Each of the actors seethes with an intensity that reveals the passions that have long lain dormant under the couple's placid exteriors.Although Gabrielle may be the first of the two to throw off the cloak of respectability and go for what really matters, it is Jean's intense struggle with his own inner demons that commands most of our attention. For despite the title being "Gabrielle," the film turns out to be much more Jean's story in the end than hers.

French screenwriter and director Patrice Chéreau`s tenth feature film which he co-wrote with French screenwriter Anne-Louise Trividic and produced, is an adaptation of a novel called "The Return" from 1897 by Polish author Joseph Conrad. It was screened In competition at the 62nd Venice Film Festival in 2005 and is a France-Italy co-production. It tells the story about a wealthy and succsessful middle-aged man named Jean Hervey who returns home on the 10th anniversary of his marriage and finds a letter written by his wife named Gabrielle containing shocking confessions that causes an array of questions.This visually captivating period piece is a gripping and efficient chamber drama set in a bourgeois milieu where French filmmaker Patrice Chéreau portrays a married couple`s crucial confrontation after a consequential revelation brings everything up to the surface. With stunning cinematography by French cinematographer Eric Gautier, production design by French production designer and art director Olivier Radot, costume design by costume designer Caroline De Vivaise, timely score by composer Fabio Vacchi, a detailed and well written story, an interesting study of character and astute filming, this atmospheric and close to theatrical tale about love and marriage stands out and is empowered by Pascal Greggory and Isabelle Huppert`s ardent lead performances.

From the opening atmospheric shots in black and white of a crowded Parisian railway station in the age of the Belle Epoque, we are immediately engrossed within a claustrophobic world where nothing seems clear. Music reminiscent of Ravel's `La Valse' adds to the sense of a deeply unsettled world beneath the ostensible platitudes of bourgeois existence. (The music was composed by Fabio Vacchi, previously unknown to this reviewer, but whose modern-sounding work nevertheless possesses heavy does of Ravel or of Debussy's wild and unchained impressionist expressionism. The soundtrack also reminded me at one moment of Bartok's `Bluebeard's Castle': how apt!)Patrice Chereau's film, based in the Monceau area of paris, is an interpretation of a short story by Joseph Conrad, exploring the inner life of a bourgeois couple. Those who have read Conrad (his best known novellas are `Heart of Darkness' and `The Secret Agent', but for me the novel `Nostromo' is arguably his best) will be aware of his use of language, his employment of strict and precisely-chosen words, but chosen by someone whose first language was no English. They will see his writing style reproduced faithfully in the film.Jean, the husband, narrates how he met his wife ten years ago. He tells us how, "I love her as a collector does his most prized item. Once acquired, it becomes his sole reason to live ... We have no intimacy, nor need of any ... I have no need for affairs ... just twin beds and two nightstands, and Gabrielle in the other bed." And then he sees the note his wife has left him on his desk, telling how she has left him; all hell breaks loose into his life. She, realising her mistake, returns only a few hours later. But the worst of it all is her return. She laughs when Jean says he forgives her.The rest of the film sees their circumstances explored both in the conversations they have with each other and the ones they have with third parties, including the servants. They see each other and their relationship anew; re-assessments are made of life, love, friends, and foes. Some honest but shocking things are said to each other, "telling true things from utter confusion" as Jean puts it. How can a man get his wife so wrong! Ten years of solid foundations turned into sand in a matter of hours. Jean's very foundations of being are shaken by what he learns; his self-assurance is shattered as he comes to realise he is still rejected. Alas, many of us have been there: I was powerfully moved.As well as the fantastic performances of the two leading players - Pascal Greggory as Jean and Isabelle Huppert as Gabrielle - and the marvellous soundtrack, the detailing of the production design, much of the power of the movie is down to the superb editing. This is the second Patrice Chereau film that I have seen at the cinema and been drawn to buy the DVD. The other was `Son Frere'. Now I am drawn to explore his earlier work.A word or two about the extras. Firstly, there are three deleted scenes, each introduced by the director. Secondly, there are interviews, conducted in French but with English subtitles, with the director and his two leads. Here, Chereau explains that Gabrielle's line, "Had I believed you loved me, I'd have never come back", sums up the meaning of the film. Meanwhile, the actors have some interesting insights to relate about the characters that they play. Huppert comments on the intimacy of the film, seeing and feeling the bare bones of the characters, the audience being witness to their torment. Finally, there is an interview with the director in English. Here he repeats much that has already been said, but he also elaborates further on such issues as the balance between the colour elements of the film and those shot in black and white.

One of my favourite Huppert films. Great viewing on a winter's day!

Excellent purchase; super condition.

Très bien!