The bridesmaid
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The bridesmaid |
| Original title | La Demoiselle d'honneur |
| Country of production | France , Germany , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 111 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Claude Chabrol |
| script | Claude Chabrol Pierre Leccia Ruth Rendell (novel) |
| production |
Patrick Godeau Alfred Hürmer Antonio Passalia |
| music | Matthieu Chabrol |
| camera | Eduardo Serra |
| cut | Françoise Benoît-Fresco |
| occupation | |
| |
The Bridesmaid is a feature film by the French film director Claude Chabrol from 2004. The drama is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ruth Rendell . The world premiere took place on September 7, 2004 at the Venice International Film Festival , where the film was shown out of competition.
action
Philippe is in his late twenties and works as a sales representative in the suburbs of Nantes . He lives with his widowed mother and two younger sisters, whom he supports financially and morally. While a girl from the neighborhood disappears without a trace, Philippe meets the bridesmaid Senta, a cousin of the groom, at the wedding of his sister Sophie. Her face reminds him of a beloved stone bust from the garden at home, which he keeps secretly in his room.
On the day of their first meeting, Philippe receives a visit from Senta. They sleep together. Senta sees Philippe as her destiny and believes that her love is predetermined. She takes it home with her, a basement apartment in the almost empty house of her aunt, a tango dancer. Although Philippe reciprocates love, Senta's stories irritate him, some of which he dismisses as daydreams. She pretends to be a theater and film actress, to have traveled to distant countries and to have worked as a go-go dancer or photo model. Senta is quick to get upset when Philippe questions one of her stories and ignores him for short periods of time.
Philippe begins to neglect his work and decides to learn more about Senta's past. He finds out that she was originally from Iceland and that her mother died in childbirth. When Senta asks him to kill a person as the ultimate proof of love, Philipp hesitates. But when he reads in the newspaper about the murder of a tramp who lived in front of Senta's house, he pretends to be his own. The next morning Senta also announced the execution of the proof of love - she stabbed Gérard Courtois, his mother's unfaithful friend, with a Venetian glass dagger. Philippe checks Senta's claim, but finds the man alive to his relief.
After he is about to advance professionally, Philippe dreams of a future together with Senta. He gives her the beloved bust as a present and asks her to become his wife. When his younger sister is arrested for theft, however, Philippe learns from the chief inspector that Courtois' cousin has been found stabbed to death. He decides to part ways with Senta before he meets the tramp, mistakenly believed to be dead, in a park. Philippe then drives to Senta and confesses his love to her. She then tells him about a previous murder of a rival and presents the missing girl's body, which she keeps hidden in a closet. While the house is being surrounded by the police, Philippe Senta promises to never leave her when asked several times.
Reviews
The French daily Le Figaro ruled that the film was less successful than Chabrol's earlier film adaptation of Rendell, Biester (1995). The entire film is a “digression” between the information at the beginning and its consequences . The two main actors are not very convincing, their passion is annoying and remains "indifferent" .
"Adaptation of a crime story client by Ruth Rendell, in which Claude Chabrol is once again not about psychological or family conflicts, but about the lasting disturbance of everyday certainties."
“After his 1995 thriller ' The Beasts ', the French veteran director Claude Chabrol is filming another thriller by Ruth Rendell. He is more interested in the imperceptibly fine cracks and fragility in the facade of bourgeois society than the murder itself. For the first time Chabrol, otherwise a chronicler of the upper class, looks at a petty-bourgeois milieu and finds the same extent of suppressed longings, obsessions and life lies there. [...] Conclusion: The story of a destructive love without ifs or buts - unforgiving, cynical and thrillingly staged. "
“In general knowledge, Chabrol is classified as an exposure of bourgeois ambiguities. 'The Bridesmaid' shows that he has become more relaxed in this respect too. How Benoît Magimel as Philippe loses his heart here, but never quite his head, reveals a certain admiration for the otherwise despised milieu. Chabrol seems to be able to gain something from the bourgeois everyday rituals and the wisdom that goes with them; the well-tempered mediocrity of behavior may be more boring, but it is very effective in protecting against the deadly traps of passion. "
Awards
- The film received the rating "Particularly valuable" from the Wiesbaden film evaluation office .
literature
- Rendell, Ruth: The bridesmaid . Munich: Goldmann, c 1990. - ISBN 3-442-46027-1
Web links
- Official website for the film (French) ( Memento of July 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- The bridesmaid in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The bridesmaid in the online film database
- The bridesmaid at filmportal.de
- The bridesmaid at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Criticism from Claudia Holz at filmstarts.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for The Bridesmaid . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ cf. Tranchant, Marie-Noëlle: Une odeur de cadavre . In: Le Figaro, November 17, 2004, No. 18750, p. 24
- ↑ The bridesmaid. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ The well-tempered citizens , taz.de