Bruno Dumont 2013 France
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Jean-Luc Vincent, Alexandra Lucas, Robert Leroy, Emmanuel Kauffman, Marion Keller, Armelle Lerov-Rolland
Bruno Dumont is one of the most interesting directors of the modern age. His films are transcendental, unusual, avant-garde but somehow raw and examine, amongst other things, religion, sex (often as a means of power) and the violence hidden beneath the surface of humanity. His early work is regularly associated with the so-called New French Extremity movement (an odd title for a country whose culture contains Diderot, Zola and de Sade) but since 2009's Hadewijch he's become far more mature in his scrutiny, developing a new empathy for his characters, not so much rooted in affection as a deep compassion. His latest, Camille Claudel 1915, steps even further from his origins working with an established, hugely famous actress, Juliette Binoche for the first time and taking as its subject a real life character, in this case the sculptor of the title, and portraying her over the space of three days during her long incarceration in an asylum, where she resides subjugated but credited with a small amount of trust, having been committed by her brother Paul (a severe, concentrated performance by Jean-Luc Vincent) after, stinging with rejection after realising that her lover, fellow sculptor Auguste Rodin, was never going to love her as she did him, she shut herself in her studio for years on end, living by choice without other people. The true level of her illness however is questionable. She certainly displays episodes of mania but how much her symptoms have been exacerbated by the length of her confinement (at the date of the film's setting two years but pushing thirty when she died in 1943) is a matter of some debate. At this point she still has hope of a sort but resignation is starting to set in, her talent still lays dormant almost compelling her to mould a lump of mud into a figure but she immediately destroys it as if she's trying to wipe the urge from her consciousness. As Claudel Binoche is resplendent, both subtle and fiercely physical, frequently still barring the smallest tremor and is perhaps never better than in the scene where, upon Paul's visit, Camille rushes to him, her face twisted with joy, her love for him unquestioned despite his figurative role as her jailor. She even refers to him by the nickname "petite Paul" (he's her younger sibling) creating a nice juxtaposition between his placement in the family tree and the patriarchal power he wields. In many ways his love for her is also still intact and, in his Catholic fanaticism, he genuinely believes he's doing what's right for her. His sanity is also in question however and there's a significant argument to made that his religious fervour is in many ways a type of madness. It's a subject Dumont has explored before - Hadewijch concerned a young woman whose blind faith led her to fall accidentally into potential terrorism and 2011's Hors Satan centred itself on a drifter with seemingly messianic, or at least martyr-like, powers, taking on the ailments of those he healed - but Paul is the first to actually harm another by his passion and possibly the most complex of the three. He only came to religion late in life, crediting Arthur Rimbaud with his awakening (although he has little time for Camille's art), but his ardent yet slightly self-important zeal is intense, he's sneering but utterly sincere and when he mentions the possibility of having Camille "exorcized" you realise that his internment of his sister isn't just down to the possibility of her disgracing the family socially. There is a bigger, more disputable issue though, that of Dumont's decision to use actual psychiatric patients in the role of Camille's fellow committees. The most lucid consented and the families of the remaining individuals gave their permission and the results are apparently using them largely naturally and as they are but there's still a question of ethics and whether the proceedings will have a negative effect on their recoveries. The subject on screen for the longest periods is Alexandra Lucas (constantly addressed as Mademoiselle Lucas) and she actually comes close to stealing the thunder of the leads. She's at once frightening and warm, demanding but unable to speak, letting out shrieks of noise, almost completely regressed to an infantilised state, an image only expanded by her missing front teeth. For once in a Dumont movie the sex too comes from a different viewpoint, referring not to the physical but to gender itself and how the film's world (and the society of 1915) exists purely as women being controlled by men. The growth shown here is refreshing and the finished product is undoubtedly Dumont's finest since Hadewijch (although not quite up to that level) but where he can go from here is another matter. If his increasing movement towards the mainstream, albeit with an approach as rigorous as ever, continues I'll be both keen and weary when his next piece is released. The thought of a Hollywood Bruno is flat out frightening.
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