Thérèse Desqueyroux
(France,
110 min.)
Dir. Claude
Miller, Writ. Claude Miller, Nathalie Carter
Starring:
Audrey Tautou, Gilles Lellouche
Thérèse Desqueyroux
marks the final film by the late French director Claude Miller (Un secret), which arrived at the Toronto
International Film Festival after serving as the closing night selection at
Cannes earlier this year. Miller’s last film is a gorgeous, stately affair. Thérèse Desqueyroux, based on the novel
by François Mauriac, is an elaborate character study with a tour-de-force performance from French
superstar Audrey Tautou (Amélie) in
the title role.
Thérèse longs for the days when she and her sister could
frolic in the fields as young girls. Now that she has grown into adulthood,
however, Thérèse sees the artifice of her patriarchal society. It leaves a sour
taste in her mouth when she sees Bernard and her other family members force
their relations into suffocating little moulds.
Much like Anna Karenina, Thérèse needs an escape. Thanks to
Tautou’s quietly commanding exploration of Thérèse’s inner torment, this
slow, languid film burns of the psychological hell of its leading lady. Thérèse’s
depressive inferno manifests itself in a raging fire, which in turn leads to a
surprising duplicity and a Madame Bovary-ish
desire to escape. As Little Children’s Sarah Pierce might say in her
assessment of the banality of suburban living, the ill-fated Miss Bovary was
motivated by a hunger for an alternative and a refusal to accept a life of
unhappiness. However, where death means an escape for the other tragic heroines
of the literary canon, the fate that greets Thérèse is the cruelest form of
death one can imagine.
Much like the title heroine, Thérèse Desqueyroux is a cold, mild-mannered film. The slow,
episodic structure with which Miller tells the story feels wholly indebted to
the revolution of literary modernism. While the adaptation of this 1927 book
feels rather novelistic, it is highly cinematic, too. Rather than tell the
story through words, Miller evokes styles and techniques of the silent era by relying
primarily on the facial expressions of his actors and by using complex
compositions of light and shadow to create a sense of Thérèse Desqueyroux’s psychology. Tautou’s face is the best special
effect of all, and the camera frames it in shots that express more than words
could say.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Thérèse Desqueyroux opens in Ottawa at The ByTowne on March 29.