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Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne

Play trailer Poster for Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne 1945 1h 30m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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100% Tomatometer 16 Reviews 79% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Socialite Helene (María Casares) is shocked when her lover, Jean (Paul Bernard), says he wants to end their relationship. Helene conceals her anguish and callously begins plotting revenge. She then meets the beautiful Agnes (Elina Labourdette), an ex-prostitute, and decides to introduce her to Jean. As he and Agnes fall in love, Helene dutifully conceals the young woman's dark secrets -- that is, until Jean marries Agnes, and Helene coldly decides to break the news.

Critics Reviews

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Tom Milne Time Out 01/26/2006
Sexuality takes precedence over salvation, but there is the same interiority, the same intensity, the same rigorous exclusion of all inessentials. Go to Full Review
Bosley Crowther New York Times 05/09/2005
4/5
It is slow, solemn, rigidly conventional and as stilted as a silent film, but it shows Bresson's early ability to catch sober and smoldering moods with his camera. Go to Full Review
Marjorie Baumgarten Austin Chronicle 04/10/2003
Praised by such filmmakers as Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni, the film is rarely screened. Go to Full Review
Kelly Vance East Bay Express 03/09/2017
Sometimes all it takes to plunge us head over heels into a melodrama is a face, in this instance the face of actress Mara Casares. Go to Full Review
Fernando F. Croce CinePassion 01/09/2013
The blend of flame and frost in Maria Casares' gaze is where Bresson and Cocteau really meet and meld Go to Full Review
TV Guide 08/28/2006
3/4
The performances by both Casares and Labourdette were strikingly captivating and were enough in themselves to carry the film. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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@MilloTPue 02/26/2020 As it is usually said, an exquisite sensitivity drama, in which characters are dissected in a way you -either loving or hating them- understand them and why they do what they do. See more 01/06/2020 Absolute modernity - masterchief See more scott s 09/12/2016 A great tale of love, jealousy, & revenge. Bresson, does a find job of setting the mood and building tension with every shot he takes. See more 12/01/2015 Although he hadn't yet developed his mature visual style (focused on hands and feet engaged in action), in this, his second feature film, Robert Bresson had already identified his key theme of transcendence through suffering. True, many of his later characters were pure, naïve, and innocent, and their suffering lends a spiritual dimension to those films (Diary of a Country Priest, Mouchette, Au Hasard, Balthazar, etc.) whereas here we see a victim who has sinned herself and needs to be forgiven. However, the plot is much more intricate than this simple theme might suggest. Indeed, there is a deviousness of purpose that sets the plot into motion, courtesy of Maria Casares who tricks her ex-lover into wooing the heroine and former cabaret girl (i.e., prostitute) without his awareness of her checkered past. Yet, somehow true love triumphs over all (and the dialogue by Cocteau surely helps to highlight this romantic theme). Nevertheless, as the film fades out, Bresson's intense focus on the moment of release from sin prepares us for his substantial body of work yet to come. See more 10/31/2013 Bresson and his characters always live in a world of hopelessness, deception and pessimism. Sadistic and pointless Helene's revenge it may seem, the haunting curse she cast is already way more sensible than Marquise de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons and Madame Serena Merle in the Portrait of a Lady. See more 04/24/2013 Bresson meets Cocteau: a movie of poetic realism and restrained (and not so restrained) passions--Bresson's Second Feature Film Confounds As It Mesmerizes!! See more Read all reviews
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne

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Movie Info

Synopsis Socialite Helene (María Casares) is shocked when her lover, Jean (Paul Bernard), says he wants to end their relationship. Helene conceals her anguish and callously begins plotting revenge. She then meets the beautiful Agnes (Elina Labourdette), an ex-prostitute, and decides to introduce her to Jean. As he and Agnes fall in love, Helene dutifully conceals the young woman's dark secrets -- that is, until Jean marries Agnes, and Helene coldly decides to break the news.
Director
Robert Bresson
Producer
Raoul Ploquin
Screenwriter
Robert Bresson, Denis Diderot, Jean Cocteau
Production Co
Les Films Raoul Ploquin
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Canadian French
Release Date (DVD)
Mar 11, 2003
Runtime
1h 30m