...and probably find more ways in which French movies differ from those of Hollywood. In Hollywood the chocolate boxes are mostly empty and the actresses look like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Ann Bancroft etc. In France the actresses look like Michele Morgan, Micheline Presle, Edwige Feuillere, Danielle Darrieux, Manu Beart etc. And it's a pretty safe assumption that only in France would we see Catherine Deneuve and Anouk Aimee sharing a bed WITHOUT being lesbians. In some ways this is the Davis/Crawford movie that they never made. Consider: Davis is drugged and raped by her boss; her boyfriend decides to give him a thrashing that gets out of hand so much so that the boss runs out of breath; Davis and the boyfriend are sentenced to prison and the boyfriend kills himself. Davis decides the only way to assuage her grief is to have a child and prevails upon her lawyer to oblige; he declines so she seduces a male nurse in the hospital prison. Sixteen years later she is released and travels to see the son she has not seen since he was born. She gets a job, makes a new life, the boy accepts both her and the situation with equanimity then, out of the blue an old cell-mate, Crawford turns up, seduces the son, who meanwhile has selected his own father-figure in the shape of one of his schoolteacher and sets him up with his mother. You're absolutely correct, Hollywood would NEVER have done something like that but in France ... Claude Lelouch has a sweet tooth and a penchant for chocolate-box settings and though he never came close to equalling his breakthrough Un Homme et une femme he racked up an impressive tally of good-to-look-at movies. He also loves the camera as is evident in a scene towards the end where Deneuve is standing at a very long bar in conversation with her son's teacher; against the wall at the far end of the bar the son (Jean-Jacques Briot) is monitoring events with mom's old cell mate Sarah (Anouk Aimee) and Lelouch lets his camera Zoom in to Anouk and Zoom out to Deneuve several times, effectively splitting the screen in an unorthodox fashion. What began in the confines of a prison (we begin with Deneuve's release then flashback to the rape, killing, impregnating in prison) ends in the vast space of the Alps with four figures skiing out of sight and the camera registering freedom and fresh air. A young Jacques Villeret has a fine cameo as an estate agent and rounds out a very satisfying movie.
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