REVIEW: Camille Claudel 1915 (2014)

Bruno Dumont is an auteur in a rather extreme sense of the word. While his films are imbued with a developing style that is all his own and with consistent themes, unfamiliarity with his early work may make it harder to fully appreciate his later work. Having seen only last year’s Hors Satan (apparently the endpoint of what was then his stylistic concerns) before seeing Camille Claudel 1915, it is hard not to imagine that one is missing something which will only make sense when one has seen how this filmmaker’s ideas have developed from his debut – La vie de Jésus ­– onwards. One consistent thing between the two I have seen, however, is the Pasolini-like concern with how religion and reality coincide.

Camille Claudel 1915 is a very specific title for a rather specific film. The film largely follows a typical section in the life of sculptress Camille Claudel (Juliette Binoche), who has been placed in Montdevergues Asylum. In her second year at the asylum, Claudel is clearly unhappy, suspicious of the motives of the nuns who care for her and feeling abandoned and imprisoned. Her existence is severely limited and depressing. Her one hope is her brother Paul (Jean-Luc Vincent) who is coming to visit her shortly.

The film is very minimalist – even more so than Hors Satan – focussing almost exclusively on Juliette Binoche’s face in close-up. As a showcase of Binoche’s talents, it is possibly unparalleled since the film spends a lot of time on Binoche’s face as she silently conveys Claudel’s inner turmoil with limited dialogue. The first hour of the film starkly represents Claudel’s life in the asylum, living amongst mentally disabled adults, all of whom were played by genuinely disabled non-professional actors (the nuns were also non-professional actors and professional nurses), cooking her own food, writing letters to people she thinks may help her, praying and just simply sitting and looking around her. The film offers a long hard look at one woman’s imprisonment.

Where the film most clearly represented Dumont’s concerns about the meeting of the sacred and the profane is in the scenes towards the end of the film involving Camille’s brother Paul, a deeply religious and incredibly self-righteous man whose strong beliefs are effectively imprisoning Camille since his refusal to release her is based on his beliefs. Their long-awaited confrontation at the end of the film only represented her entrapment of the more since their conversation is stilted and uncommunicative. Camille complains of her imprisonment and vents furiously about the men she thinks put her there (her former lover Rodin whom she hasn’t seen in twenty years) while Paul can only look on and shake his head.

Another instance in which the spiritual is checked or forced into contrast with reality is in the faces of the other asylum inmates. Dumont trains his camera on their faces – which may or may not feel exploitative depending on one’s point of view – representing either the religious clichés of the holy fool or an instance in which religion is not present and cannot help. In one scene, a nun helped a patient into the church despite the fact that his feet hurt and he has no idea what God or heaven is. The contrast is presumably intended to be similar to that in Pasolini’s Accattone in which a street fight is famously and rather movingly scored with sacred music by Bach.

If the film feels then like a rather slight work, it is because the film intends to be an accurate representation of what Camille Claudel’s life must have been like in 1915, hence the specific title. Two years into an imprisonment that would last almost thirty years until her death – as one incredibly stark note states at the end of the film – we see a Camille that hasn’t yet given up hope, one that still expected to be allowed out of her asylum.

That said, and after only one viewing, it seems that the film may have more to it than simply a representation of imprisonment and a vague interest in the clash between religion and reality. Like Hors Satan, which imagines what a modern day, country-based Jesus or Satan would be like, Camille Claudel 1915 feels like a film that will reveal more with further viewing and a deeper familiarity with the filmmaker’s work. No bad thing, but it means that some further study is required.

A shorter review is available here.

SHORT REVIEW: Camille Claudel 1915 (2014)

This short review appears on The Upcoming website here.

It may be advantageous to be familiar with Bruno Dumont’s cinema before one goes to see Camille Claudel 1915 since his work seems to be extremely personal and his style seems to have developed into one that novices may not fully appreciate.

The film starkly represents a limited though typical period of time in Camille Claudel’s (Juliette Binoche) near 30 years imprisonment in an asylum attended to by nuns. For the first hour of the film, we watch Claudel sit, eat, pray and cry, waiting for the promised visit from her brother Paul (Jean-Luc Vincent), who may get her out of there. Binoche’s believable and restrained performance – she is given very few lines and has to convey a lot with only her face, filmed in long close-ups – powerfully tells of her feelings of entrapment and abandonment.

Meanwhile, Dumont mixes the sacred and the profane by focussing on the faces of the inmates of the asylum (played by disabled, non-professional actors) in a way that is meant to convey the clash between an all-too human reality and a somewhat irrelevant religion. Indeed, when the strongly devout Paul does arrive, Camille and he speak at cross-purposes and it becomes all too clear that Paul has religious reasons for keeping her locked away.

The film is a moving and esoteric depiction of a woman’s long imprisonment held together by a strong central performance from Binoche. Its stark treatment is presumably intended to convey God’s silence and the incongruity of religion and the reality depicted. It is slow, minimalist cinema similar to Bresson in style and Pasolini in theme. Though powerful and artistic, it may appear extremely slight and will probably mean much more to those familiar with Dumont’s previous films and those willing to give it more than one viewing.

A longer review will appear on the website closer to the film's release.

And for a short review of Dumont's previous film, Hors Satan, see the 2013 Round-Up.

REVIEW: Certified Copy (2010)

  “Certified Copy” is the new film by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, best known for such films as “A Taste of Cherry” and “Ten”. His first film made away from Iran, “Certified Copy” stars Juliette Binoche, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her slightly overwrought performance here. Despite the plaudits concerning a tour de force performance from one of France’s premier actresses, there is something more interesting at work in this apparent romantic drama.

  The plot is essentially that of Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise”- two people meet in a scenic European city and spend the day wandering and talking about a variety of subjects. Art and romance are the key subjects here, but there is also a twist thrown in. Art curator Binoche and art theorist/ author William Shimell take on the roles of husband and wife and soon it almost becomes the real thing. Copying an apparent conveyor belt of newly-weds around them, the couple question whether an original has more validity than a copy or whether there is a difference. And, by extension, whether life imitates art or art imitates life.

  The film is reasonably intriguing while it lasts and the arguments are entertaining and sometimes funny. Shimell, in his first screen role, shines during an outburst in a restaurant. If you feel inclined to care, the mystery of whether this couple have been married for fifteen years or have just meet is well presented and left open to interpretation.

  Most interesting, however, is the film’s self-awareness. A romance film set in Tuscany is nothing new and Kiarostami is aware of this. His prestige and the film’s philosophical undertones are mere window-dressing. Kiarostami is aware that his fairly conventional little tale will be viewed differently than something like “Under The Tuscan Sun” simply because of its distribution in the arthouse circuit and because his name is attached. Like a Pop Art bottle of Coke, something everyday is perceived differently simply because of its surroundings.

  However, the film is overlong, apt to confuse itself and rather self-indulgent. While “Before Sunset” is the film’s favoured comparison, I would have to draw more parallels with Roger Corman’s schlock horror-comedy “A Bucket of Blood”, an hour-long film which, essentially, says all that “Certified Copy” does without slowing down to accommodate its creator’s every whim. “A Bucket of Blood” knows its trash, and it really is, but it is also aware that it can say something too, even if it is the interpretations of the most arrogant and inept art critic. Essentially, if the shoe fits...   The problem with “Certified Copy” is that, despite being a pleasantly diverting art film, it might give you blisters.