Movies I Love: THE HISTORY OF ADELE H

Francois Truffaut's 1975 L'HISTOIRE DE ADELE H is one of those movies that enthralled me so much that I came out of the cinema as it was snowing in a state of total rapture. The story is mesmerising as is Isabelle Adjani, who made her film reputation with this, after being an acclaimed stage actress. She is just so haunting and compelling and incredibly beautiful, and has been so accomoplished ever since. THE BRONTE SISTERS was more Victorian costume drama but she had less to do and it was a much lesser film, but she also scored in items like THE DRIVER, CAMILLE CLAUDEL, LE REINE MARGOT, BON VOYAGE and others. (We won't mention ISHTAR!) Here though at 19, she is the daughter of France's great writer Victor Hugo and we find her in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1863 on the trail of a French officer Lt Pinson (Bruce Robinson) whom she is madly in love with. He however does not return her obsessive love and we watch fascinated as she turns into a stalker following him and recording everyting in her diary. Joseph Blatchley is the other young man who has feelings for her, but Adele is only aware of Pinson, even giving him money for other women.



Finally, madness overwhelms her as she follows Pinson to his next post in Barbados, where she is found penniless and is returned by Madame Baa to her father in Jersey. One chilling scene has Adele in a world of her own passing Pinson in the street and not even recognising him as she is so far gone in her own world. It is a vivid stunning performance - and it is just as powerful now. I just like the look and period feel to the film, one of Truffaut's literary films, which is probably the best ever on the nature of obsessive love. [Adjani, one of France's great actresses, has had quite a tempestous life too, including relationships with Beatty, and a son by Daniel Day-Lewis].

2 more French rarities

LES SOEURS BRONTE – A 1979 French film I had been looking forward to seeing one day, as it never played in the UK, and one can see why now. Despite being about the Bronte sisters, and their brother, we see nothing really about how or what they wrote or why they were the geniuses they were. Instead we get 3 attractive French stars pouting on the moors and at the gloomy parsonage. Isabelle Adjani is Emily who wrote “Wuthering Heights” and strides over the moors in mens’ clothes. Isabelle Huppert is Anne, the quiet mousy one, author of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, while Marie-France Pisier (who died this year) is serenely beautiful as Charlotte, who created “Jane Eyre” and “Villette”. It is great to see Adjani again but she has nothing much to play with here – unlike her great role in Truffaut’s HISTORY OF ADELE H. There is rather too much of brother Branwell (Pascal Greggory) which frankly has one reaching for the fast-forward – there is the chilling moment though when he erases his image from the family portrait; his friend played by Jean Sorel is hardly in it, and Patrick Magee is also underused as their father. Emily and Anne die and Charlotte becomes a success, we end with her at the opera, a nice scene with the carriages and torches, as Mr Thackeray invites her and her husband to share his box, which is where we leave her. The girls through are really too attractive – as directed by Andre Techine I dare say it was popular at the time with the French.



LANDRU – An early Chabrol film (1963) hardly seen now, its in none of the boxsets (also known as BLUEBEARD – though not as much fun as the Burton one), this is a very interesting oddity, a not entirely successful telling of the Landru murders which fascinated France during WWI (he killed at least 11 women for their money). But it is neither a black comedy nor a straightforward drama. Again, an interesting cast of French ladies are the main interest, but we see too little of Danielle Darrieux, Michele Morgan, Hildegarde Knef, Juliette Mayniel (from EYES WITHOUT A FACE). Thankfully we do not see them being despatched, as each lady ends with a freeze frame, then cut to the smoking chimney of Landru’s country house, with the neighbours complaining of the smell, as he works at his stove … how he gets away with all this is a mystery [even buying return tickets for himself, and singles for them, from the girl at the railway station), while also dropping in on his wife and children now and then, and also keeping his silly mistress, Stephane Audran. Charles Denner though with shaved head and full beard is rather like a sinister little gnome – how did all these silly women fall into his clutches? - one expects them to scream or burst out laughing. He has no redeeming features whatsoever, so it gets rather dull eventually. Scripted by Francoise Sagan, with some rather lurid colour sets. The murders are intercut with footage of the carnage at the trenches, perhaps a point is being made about the collective madness of the time? Then it is the trial, he is executed, the end. Its a dubbed Joe E Levine release by Embassy.