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'Wife' Mines Old French Tradition

Posted on: Friday, 23 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune

Dec. 23--"Gilles' Wife" is a French psychological romantic drama in a grand old tradition, about a divinely self-sacrificing wife (Emmanuelle Devos) trapped in a '30s French provincial mining town, suffering through agonizing crises caused by her husband's wild infatuation with her younger sister.

Devos, the sultry actress/temptress of "Kings and Queen,""The Beat that My Heart Skipped" and "Read My Lips," plays an atypical role: Elisa, a quiet, gently loving wife and mother who discovers gradually that her sullen miner husband Gilles (Clovis Cornillac) is having an affair with her sister Victorine (Laura Smet). That taxes tolerance enough, but the situation worsens when Victorine dumps Gilles, and he becomes consumed with insane jealousy. Showing amazing sympathy, Elisa tries to nurse her abominably selfish husband through his madness, becoming more and more entangled with the broken affair and facing it with almost saintlike patience.

That patience may tax the credulity of some modern audiences, though the film itself--directed by Frederic Fonteyne ("An Affair of Love") and co-scripted by Marion Hansel ("The Quarry")--probably faithfully reflects its time and milieu. Composed in brief, powerful scenes and in striking, painterly images, "Gilles' Wife" irresistibly recalls the great early films of actors Jean Gabin and Raimu and directors Jean Renoir, Marcel Pagnol and Marcel Carne: classics of the '30s, the decade when this film's literary source--Madeleine Bourdouxhe's 1937 Belgian novel "La Femme de Gilles"--was written. Like the best of those legendary "poetic realist" films, but done with more sexual frankness and visual realism, "Gilles' Wife" mixes naturalism with theatrical grace, riveting your attention and wounding your heart.

What compels the viewer throughout is both the power of the acting--especially by Devos, but by the other principals as well--and the beauty of the images. "Gilles' Wife" exposes the ugly lot of some married women in pre-World War II France, but it's also about a spiritual journey and the unexpected heroism of the everyday. The ending is a stunner. Like those '30 classics it suggests, "Gilles' Wife" seduces us with true cinematic magic: rich characters, great acting and that rapturous old French blend of realism and theatricality.

'Gilles' Wife'

(star)(star)(star)1/2

Directed by Frederic Fonteyne; written by Philippe Blasband, Marion Hansel and Fonteyne, based on the novel "La Femme de Gilles" by Madeleine Bourdouxhe; photographed by Virginie Saint Martin; edited by Ewin Ryckaert; sets designed by Veronique Sacrez; music by Vincent D'Hondt; produced by Patrick Quinet, Claude Waringo. In French, with English subtitles. A Cinema Guild release; opens Friday at the Music Box Theatre. Running time: 1:48.

Elisa ................ Emmanuelle Devos

Gilles ............... Clovis Cornillac

Victorine ............ Laura Smet

The twins ............ Alice and Chloe Verlinden

Elisa's father ....... Gil Lagay

Elisa's mother ....... Colette Emmanuelle

No MPAA rating: parents cautioned for sexuality, partial nudity, mature themes and violence.

mwilmington@tribune.com

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Copyright (c) 2005, Chicago Tribune

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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