Gervaise

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09/07/2012 From Emile Zola's novel "L'Assommoir" which essentially means to be hammered (drunk). Rene Clement directs the realistic but tragic debasement of a working class woman at the hands of two men and the rejection by a third. The story clearly a show of how slender is the thread holding us back from catastrophe. Excellent B&W cinematography. See more 12/05/2011 Émile Zola's story l'Assommoir makes a bleak film - I watched it without subtitles and my French isn't good enough to have understood everything that was said, but still found it a powerful story. See more 11/29/2010 A perfect ending to a pretty perfect movie. See more 10/30/2010 This film is filled with so much loathing and anger that when something even halfway decent happens you can't believe it, like Gervaise, and then before you know it, real shit goes down and your treading in bitches. Reject what makes you happy, drown in your weaknesses, and drink some booze. Now, it's not entirely bleak, hope springs from time to time, but hope is more of a sinister alien than anything else. Until the finale, where our dreams come true, and THE moment captures a million words. See more walter m @Harlequin68 08/24/2010 Gervaise(Maria Schell) has two children, a bad leg, but no husband, living with Lantier(Armand Mestral), the father of her children. That changes when he leaves her which she finds out when her children show up at her workplace, a laundry, where some of her co-workers display less than sympathy. Defending her family's honor, Gervaise wins a ten round fight with Virginie(Suzy Delair) by TKO. Two years later, she is now married to Coupeau(Francois Perier), a roofer, and they have a daughter together. Even with that, Gervaise dreams of opening a shop of her own... "Gervaise" is a powerful and skillfully filmed movie, set amongst the working class of Paris in the 1860's(The Crimean War was in the past while Emperor Napoleon III is still in power) that attacks hypocrisy(notice the scene in the Louvre) concerning the role of women in society, advising them to to be patient in finding a husband, if they want one. This is a society where only the strong survive, and a single mistake could mean ruin, where Gervaise tries to take a different route by using her brains, even as she has been a mother since she was a teenager. See more 02/27/2010 Adaptation, sans doute un peu tronquée, de "L'Assomoir" de Zola Film très moderne, car dénué d'effets de styles et de moralité typiques de son époque. Il préfère s'attacher à la réalité des personnages, reconstitue avec véracité le Paris des faubourgs de 1850, et privilégie les scènes naturalistes, ce qui en fait une vision sans doute très réaliste de la vie de nos ancêtres parisiens du XIXe siècle. See more Read all reviews

Gervaise

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