A Gentle Woman (1969)
"Une femme douce" (original title)

A young woman kills herself, leaving no explanation to her grief-stricken pawnbroker husband. We learn in flashback about how they met, married, and how she failed to adapt her lifestyle to... See full summary »

Director:

Robert Bresson

Writers:

Robert Bresson, Fyodor Dostoevsky (short story)

Stars:

Dominique Sanda, Guy Frangin, Jeanne Lobre

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Dominique Sanda	...	Elle
Guy Frangin	...	Luc, son mari
Jeanne Lobre	...	Anna, la bonne
Claude Ollier	...	Le médecin
Jacques Kébadian	...	Le dragueur
Gilles Sandier	...	Le maire
Dorothée Blanck	...	L'infirmière (as Dorothée Blank)

Storyline

A young woman kills herself, leaving no explanation to her grief-stricken pawnbroker husband. We learn in flashback about how they met, married, and how she failed to adapt her lifestyle to his. Disgusted with his attempts to dominate her, she considered murdering him, but found herself unable to do it...

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Plot Keywords:

flashback | pawnbroker | reference to shakespeare's hamlet | female nudity | very little dialogue | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

27 May 1971 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Gentle Woman

Company Credits

Production Co:

Marianne Productions, Parc Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Robert Bresson chose Dominique Sanda just as a result of her first voice call.

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Connections

Referenced in The Road to Bresson (1984)

User Reviews

Yet another gentle philosopher from Bresson

Bresson's brilliant adaptation of Dostoevsky's short story (A Gentle Creature) exhibits in its lapidary sequences the political and existential revolt of a young student in Paris. Sharing a theme that can be traced from Bresson's Mouchette to his fantastic exploration of revolutionary choices in The Devil Probably, Une Femme Douce articulates in its inimitable minimalist mode a range of issues from the ideological options of France post-May '68 to human relationships. Dominique Sanda is not the conventional, recognizable student revolutionary, but a "gentle" philosopher whose powers of sensitivity and social scrutiny exceed and tease the prosaic, crude disposition of her bourgeois husband. The sequences in the zoo, the museum of natural history and the performance of Hamlet are powerful. On another note, look out for Indian experimental filmmaker Kumar Shahani who was assisting Bresson at this time, sitting diagonally behind Sanda in the sequence at the movie theater.