Gabrielle

I'm not quite sure what to make of this film. I read many great reviews of it so I gave it a shot at one of the most comfortable theaters in Manhattan for a Monday matinee. The last Patrice Chereau directed film I'd seen was 1998's Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train and I liked that. The film is based on a Joseph Conrad short story, not that it was the impetus for me going to see it.

I liked parts of this film a lot. The occasional freeze frame for a title card was innovative and effective. The going back and forth between color and B & W wasn't as effective and was somewhat jarring. But the story held my attention so I can't be too hard on it.

Set in 1912, the movie traces the dissolution of a fraud of a marriage between two members of the bourgeoisie in a world of servants and dinner parties. Displaying any kind of motion is considered abhorrent by the husband/narrator played by Pascal Greggory. Isabelle Huppert plays his wife and utters one of the most vicious lines of the film, "The thought of your sperm inside me is unbearable."

This wasn't as good as the reviews would have had me believe but it was a pleasant enough diversion amongst a New York heat wave.

IFC Center
2005, Year of U.S. Release - 2006