Régis Wargnier loves to take his characters all around the planet(see also "Indochine" or "man to man" in the pygmies land;probably because of his own childhood).He also loves Douglas Sirk :no less than two extracts of his movies are included:"battle hymn" (1957)the moral of which was rather dubious ,and the great "written on the wind " (brief extract where Dorothy Malone "dances her dad" to death )Emmanuelle even imitates the American star ,in a blood red dress.Funny,I had been thinking of Sirk before his extracts were shown ;Jeanne could be a Sirkian heroine and the screenplay is primarily a melodrama ;the genre can produce masterpieces (Sirk,Stahl,Minnelli) but it takes a lot a madness,something more than this academic directing.The movie looks like a blueprint for miniseries the episodes of which being " meeting at the station" "the soldier has come home" " lost in a devastated land" " back in Paris and daddy's gone away again" etc .All in all,the film does not equal the sum of its numerous parts .With a husband whose spouse is more the army than Emmanuelle Béart ,who could blame this "sinner" ?Best idea is the romantic ending but it's botched ! See it for the two principals ,two of the best actors of today.
Review of A French Woman
