Les dames du Bois de Boulogne

Plot synopsis:
Hélène and Jean have pledged their love to each other, but are not engaged to marry. Their love affair allows dalliances with others, but they have promised to put each other first above all others. Hélène has been warned by a friend that Jean's love for her has cooled and fears this is correct. She tricks him into confessing, by pretending her own feelings for him have cooled to a friendship. She hides her shock and dismay when he enthusiastically accepts her as now just a friend instead of a lover. After he leaves her apartment, it is clear that she is devastated. But instead of mourning her love, she decides to exact a cruel revenge on him.
Young Agnès is a cabaret dancer. Her ambition was to become a ballerina at the Opera, but hard times have fallen on her, and in order to support herself and her mother, she has resorted to dancing in nightclubs and earning money as a prostitute. Hélène, in a pretense of compassion, offers to pay off Agnès' mother's debts and move them into an apartment, allowing Agnès to quit the nightlife.
Hélène sets a trap using Agnès to entice Jean into falling in love with the young woman. She assures him that Agnes and her mother are of an “impeccable” background. He is already smitten as soon as he sees Agnes in the Bois de Boulogne, and makes no attempt to learn anything about her, instead relying on Helene's false information.
Agnès suspects they're being manipulated by Hélène but feels powerless to escape the trap. Jean does not relent in his advances, and finally Agnès agrees to marry him. Hélène advises her not to breathe a word to Jean about her past until after they are wed, and insists to Jean that he allow her to plan a lavish wedding for the two of them.
Immediately after the ceremony, Hélène first hints to Jean that something is amiss. Agnès had assumed that Hélène had already told Jean the truth, and learning she was tricked, falls in a faint. Jean confronts Hélène, who now divulges triumphantly that she maneuvered him into the marriage, and that all of the guests know the truth. Jean, filled with shame, bewilderment and rage, drives off leaving his new bride, still in an unconscious state.
Later that evening, Jean returns. Agnès' mother warns that the girl's heart is weak and that she could die. Jean walks into the room, stone-faced. Agnès, barely conscious, whispers that she hopes he will forgive her, but it's clear that she will free him by giving up her life. Agnès sighs, and appears to stop breathing. Jean is filled with love for her and begs her to be strong and to hang on to life. Although weak, she hears him and her faint smile assures him that she will live.

Tags: revenge, intrigue, romantic

Review:
This film shows Bresson before he turned to using nonprofessional actors.
Skillfully, he moves forward the story of a scheming, jealous, vengeful society woman whose own tricks have blown up in her face.One of your commenters complained the film was boring, but that wasn't my experience.
On the other hand, if you enjoy watching and hearing a master look into a soulless bosom, and if you enjoy sitting back while a serious artist shows us how to advance a simple but serious plot about serious people, you'll enjoy Dames..
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!
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"..
In Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (or The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne), we see a society woman Helene played with icy and curiously subtle perfection by María Casares (notice the colorful hats and little white dog and servant) get her form of revenge on an ex-lover (or would-be lover) by having him fall for another woman, a sort of wonderful dancer but more "street" type named Agnes (also very wonderful Elina Labourdette).
A Hollywood director could make a tawdry melodrama out of the ingredients present here, but the director Robert Bresson is interested in other things, what makes the passions of these characters tic themselves.
We see letters written (sometimes with the "help" of another in a conniving way), glances turn into loving stares, significant little things like the lending of an umbrella or the presence of new flowers, the drop of a glass during dinner from minor shock or dismay.
At the same time Bresson doesn't let us think these people shouldn't be together, making the eventual dastardly twist make it even harder but even more necessary for Agnes and Jean to be together.
Or to try.Some may be thrown off slightly, as I was, by Bresson's direction here having seen his later, more famous works like his masterpiece A Man Escaped and near-great films (or arguably just the best there is) like Au hasard Balthazar and Pickpocket and how much more restrained and 'stone-cold' emotionally one might say compared to this film.
If he hadn't gone his own way with Diary of a Country Priest, Bresson could have gone the way of a more conventional career on the basis of this project, which features some more conventional touches like in the editing, or in allowing for certain moments of incredible and even sensual joy like when Agnes dances.
But it's the small touches, and certain traits in the performances that he's able to bring out of his actors, that do mark it as a Robert Bresson picture.
And if anything having such a tug-of-war of what is love, what is it to fall for someone dearly in the face of a trick or whatever or cynicism benefits from having somewhat more conventional emotional scenes than the drained sorrow of Balthazar.Not to mention having Jean Cocteau writing the dialog, which is such an added bonus that it must not be dismissed.
Here we see Cocteau's mark by way of the dialog being very rich in getting to the heart of the matter in almost every scene but seamlessly still adhering to Bresson's scenario.
This is Robert Bresson's most stylish, and possibly his most romantic movie; it is an elegant and refined drama of jealousy and revenge.
It is full of wonderful details, such as the scene of Elina Labourdette's night club act, or the wonderful moment later in the film where she bursts into dance because of her boredom with her confinement.
This is Bresson's first masterpiece, and was a failure upon release, but has come to be regarded as one of the great films in French film history..
Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) was written and directed by Robert Bresson.
This movie is the second feature film by the great French director Bresson.
It's the last film in which he used professional actors.In a story somewhat reminiscent of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, two wealthy, sophisticated lovers have a parting of the ways.
Hélène, played by María Casares, senses that Jean (Paul Bernard) is losing interest in her.
The remainder of the story depicts the way the elaborate revenge scheme involving Agnès is carried out.Labourdette and Bernard are fine actors, and both had long careers in French cinema.
Bresson directs the film--and Casares--with the hand of a master.We saw this movie on the large screen at the excellent Dryden Theatre at Eastman House in Rochester, NY.
It is Bresson's most accessible, classically structured film.
Taken from Diderot, it is a story of love, betrayal and revenge.
Because it is one of the few films which manage to give the viewer a true sense of what love is and/or should be, of what it may achieve, avoiding the corny lexicon of romance, turning the potentially stale conventions of melodrama into an altogether plausible concoction of events, gestures, actions directly speaking to our experience.
"Le Dames de Bois de Boulogne" is a very beautiful and rich love story.
Contrary to many other films in which the words are the main tools used to describe feelings and love, the films of Bresson rely on the power of images.
(It is difficult to put a label on people or peoples ideas), but anyway both of them are visual masters."Le Dames de Bois de Boulogne" describes the many stages of a love relationship very subtly - a never-ending passion (but the fire is slowly going out) and the couple, Jean (Paul Bernard) and Helene (Maria Casares) decides (by suggestion of Helene) that it's time for them to end their love relationship but to remain faithful friends for life.
Everything seems to be alright till Jean knows Agnès (a Helene protégée) and falls in love with her.
But in Helene the remaining embers of the old passion are enough to rekindle the fire (not of love, but of jealousy) and she plans revenge.........This is the classic love triangle story, but it is told without fanfares in a minimalistic way, and therefore it has a strong effect.
Very good movie by Robert Bresson.
After two years with Jean, Hélène tells him that she's not in love with him like at the beginning and that the love that she still have for him is fading away.
What a surprise and a sense of betrayal when Jean tells Hélène that he was feeling the same way.
So, as a revenge, Hélène manage to get Jean and Agnès together.
Robert Bresson's 1945 adaptation of Denis Diderot's novel Jacque Le Fataliste leaves a few gaps for modern film buffs to jump over in order to appreciate this war-time love story.
The secondary character of Agnes is supposed to be a prostitute with a vague connection to the main character, Helene, but other than an amazingly athletic dance in an up-scale cabaret, she shows no inclinations toward the lascivious or even the exotic.
On the other hand, Helene, played by Maria Casares, is portrayed with a well-nuanced undercurrent of revenge and manipulation, even a bit over-the-top in places, but entertainingly so.
Her motivations are never far from the surface as she manipulates Jacque/Jean in order to get revenge for his having lost his passion for her, though apparently not his grudging admiration of her.
The role of Jacque/Jean is very adequately portrayed by Paul Bernard as a love-sick boob of a Parisian businessman.
My dedication to this plot is compromised because none of Agnes' seedy past has been portrayed on screen; thus, I have no emotional connection to her character.
Agnes and her mother seem totally misrepresented or else I simply expect too much scandal in a film about a prostitute- probably more my problem than theirs.
I think I'll have a look at the novel and see if the film becomes in comparison more interesting.
Bresson's second film, a moody classical set piece.
Just after the Nazis left, Robert Bresson directed this, his second film.
The story is an updated version of a tale entitled 'Jacques le Fataliste' by Denis Diderot (1713-1784), the famous radical thinker and encyclopaedist of the French Enlightenment era.
Surprisingly enough, Diderot's novels and stories have been filmed 22 times between 1922 and 2013, and this one was filmed again in both 1967 and 2005.
This film is a surprisingly formal, classical film for someone like Bresson.
It is primarily notable for the frighteningly intense performance by Maria Casares as a beautiful woman scorned, who applies all of her energies to destroying the lover who has jilted her.
Dialogue for the film was written by Jean Cocteau.
Much of the film consists of recurring shots of the smouldering gaze of Casares, who scorches the viewer, the camera, the screen, and everything and everyone in sight with her sinister, scheming hatred and determination to obtain revenge.
Disappointing on a couple of major fronts, as a Bresson film and as a Cocteau script.
This was Bresson's second film.
A society woman tricks her former lover into falling in love and marrying a former cabaret dancer (a Hollywood-like front for prostitution).
Elina Labourdette, who plays Agnes the dancer, is excellent (and she sure can dance), but the rest of the cast is lifeless.
Her idea is to get him interested in a woman who had aspirations to become a serious dancer, but out of poverty, had to turn to dancing in cabarets and prostitution to support herself and her mother.
She plots to keep the 'fallen' woman's story hidden and to put the two in each other's path, then manipulate him into falling in love.
The icy cruelty and emotional torture may remind you of the aristocrats in Laclos's 'Dangerous Liaisons', and indeed, the script is based on a part of a book by Denis Diderot, 'Jacques the Fatalist,' which was also published in the late 18th century.María Casares is suitably evil in the leading role, and I really felt for the young woman who becomes her pawn (Elina Labourdette).
It is interesting to see the story unfold, however, with Labourdette's character sensing something is amiss and suspecting Casares.
Quite often french's movie are too hard to swallow, actually they usually making an Art pictures, unusual for us, more hollywoodesque oriented, when l saw it on first time was endless boring, yesterday l'd reread it one more time more carefully, trying see something else and l did found it deeply well done, the results are true gem although in slow pace, poetic and fatalistic, the dialogues supplied by Jean Cocteau rises upwards enrances, adapted from a old novel this picture maybe needs a second chance from moviefans, Bresson deserves it entirely!!Resume:First watch: 2010 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.
Despite all the ingredients of Melodrama, the director, by his brilliance, converted it into a warm story, carefully avoiding tears.The movie belonged to María Casares (Hélène) the scorned lover, who took upon herself to take revenge on Paul Bernard by carefully manipulating him into a mésalliance.
I expected Jean to pull out a revolver, but thankfully he didn't carry one in his automobile.There is of course one error in the main synopsis, the girl Agnès was cabaret dancer, a very famous (and adored) too - since when she tried a job as store clerk, she had been recognized not only by store staff, but many customers too, in the first day itself.
Bresson's second feature film, the plot is as simple as this: a woman takes revenge to her ex-lover by coaxing him into marry a young girl with an ill reputation, but the movie emanates a classical elegance through a meager four-player game.
A young socialite Hélene (Casarès), sensing that the romance between her and her lover Jean (Bernard) has plateaued out, weasels her way into the latter's blithe confession by feigning that she wants to take a step back from their liaison, a cunning move to elicit the truth without staging a scene, in fact, she completely gains Jean's trust and admiration by her ostensible munificence and sensibility, little does he know, the tidings is a hammer blow to her.
Bresson lays bare its psychological signification through his able players (his last film cast by professionals).
Elina Labourdette's Agnès, by comparison, guilelessly wears her hearts on her sleeve and makes heavy weather of her resistance from Jean which belies her abject capitulation in the first place, there is no reason for a young girl balks at a suave suitor like Jean if not for her ignoble past, and Paul Bernard gaily epitomizes a man's naiveté and predictability despite the fact that it is after all, him who has the say-so in the fallout, not these two polarized lollapaloozas from the opposite sex, or Lucienne Bogaert's Madame D., Agnès' careworn mother.
The ending is tinged with romanticism (through the illumining light on Agnès' impeccable visage), resuscitated by love over prejudice, the pair might indeed obtain true happiness after the event, the film sends a liberal-minded message and bears testimony of Bresson's aptitude of grappling with something ablaze with connivance, melancholy and lachrymosity, a rather disparate frontage, but not entirely less crafted, in juxtaposition with his more distinguished and groundbreaking masterworks..
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...
A minor film in Bresson's filmography, still surprisingly good though.
Oh, and I liked very much Maria Casares acting too.
This is also the last Bresson's film to feature a cast entirely composed of professional actors.
Bresson is far more interested in humiliation and misogyny than real passion and convincing evil.
Unfortunately, for me, Bresson is far more interested in humiliation and misogyny than real passion and convincing evil.
Bresson's Second Feature Film Confounds As It Mesmerizes.
French auteur director Robert Bresson co-wrote and directed Les Dames Du Bois Du Boulogne during the close of World War II.
The film illustrates the classic love triangle of a woman scorned plotting revenge, a man bored with his lover who almost immediately turns his attentions toward another young prospect, and a young girl from the wrong side of the tracks trying to improve her station in life, keenly aware of needing to support her mother.
However, as with most of Bresson's films, the film is deceptively simple in its construction but not in its execution.The beautiful and enigmatic Maria Casares stars as Helene, the woman irked by her lover's easy acceptance of her rejection.
Casares is absolutely mesmerizing as the conniving upper-crust woman consumed by anger and revenge.
Paul Bernard plays the seemingly naive Jean who turns his attention from one woman to another and winds up faced with the classic dilemma facing many men: madonna vs.
Elina Labourdette has, perhaps, the most difficult role of Agnes, the seemingly innocent girl with a past torn between her duty to her mother, her guilt and shame, and her ambivalence toward men in general.Amazingly, Casares and Bernard seem very contemporary in their roles, despite the age of the film, demonstrating that Bresson had a keen eye for the psychosocial detail of his characters.
Jean wants to believe that Agnes is his ideal wife until Helene dashes his hopes, at least temporarily.
Agnes is grief-stricken with guilt over the revelations about her past that Jean discovered too late via Helene.
In the end, the characters stay true to themselves despite their obvious shortcomings, and isn't that what real love's supposed to be about?
There are no signs of Vichy France during the film despite its World War II time period, and one wonders whether the minimalist Bresson's style happens to be synonymous with having the foresight to convey this universal story outside the confines of time.
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.
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.
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.
I also have really loved the films of Jean Cocteau, though his dialog here seems more like something from one of his fantasy films (like BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or ORPHEUS).
The reason why I felt so unimpressed by this particular film was because I found the story and the dialog so thoroughly impossible to believe.
None of the characters seemed like real people--just characters from a very, very old fashioned novel.Hélène and Jean have been dating for two years.
So, instead of just accepting this minor inconvenience, Hélène spends the rest of the movie concocting a convoluted plan to break Jean's heart.
Hélène then deliberately introduces Jean to Agnès--somehow magically knowing that he'd fall head over heels for her and show the romantic ardor of some 19th century tragic hero (not a real man).