Philippe Harel
France
Judging from its storyline alone, Philippe Harel's La femme defendue would appear to be a simple tale of adultery. Francois (Philipe Harel), a 39-year-old married man, meets Muriel (Isabelle Carre), a 22-year-old single woman and they embark on a passionate affair in which the balance of power and affection swings wildly between them.
The original story was written by Eric Assous as a series of dialogues, which the writer describes as "between theatre, cinema and a literary text. There was also the influence of my previous work, as I'd written a lot of radio plays and I've always preferred dialogue to description." According to Harel, Assous' script first came to his attention thanks to the recommendation of Pierre Salvadori (director of the comic dramas Cible emouvant and Les apprentis), who described the work as 'Harelien', a description that the director himself qualifies as relating to a penchant for "honestly exploring the intimacy between people".
Harel was attracted by what he saw as "the austerity" of Assous' work and the writer's decision to "have only two characters, since there's always a trio in stories of adultery." But it took the director a year to find a technical solution to filming Assous' script. "I'd considered other ways of bringing these two characters to life: for example, by keeping the rest of the world indistinct so that we only see it as shadows."
It was necessary to find a way of avoiding the traditional shot/countershot. Harrel chose to film the story literally from the point of view of Francois. "Above all, we wanted the viewer to forget that this was a subjective camera. We looked at films that used this technique, such as Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake. But there was the clear sense that it was a technical idea imposed on a screenplay that didn't require it."
The technical problems in shooting the film were numerous, admits Harel. "The choice of the subjective camera prevented certain things. It was out of the question that Francois and Muriel kiss, for example. In The Lady in the Lake, the hero closes his eyes when he kisses his partner and it's as if the limits of the subjective camera technique are being admitted to the audience which, in turn, makes the technique more noticeable."
Such unremitting concentration on a single element of cinematic grammar had its consequences, concedes Harel. "The funny thing is that after shooting La femme defendue, when I went to the cinema, the classic shot/countershots annoyed me. And on the film that I shot afterwards, I had problems organising my own countershots. I'd unlearnt the grammar of cinema!"
As for Muriel, the object of this unflinching technical and amorous focus, her character was transformed, according to Eric Assous, her original creator. "This story of an adultery also became the portrait of a young woman. Without the subjective camera, we wouldn't have been able to capture the complexity of Muriel's feelings and the psychological finesse of Isabelle Carre's performance."
Harrel auditioned several actresses, "but what interested me about Isabelle was that while one could see her as a pure young girl during tests, she revealed the possibility to transform this smooth image. You don't have any suspicions about her character, you could believe her to be docile and submissive and these are false impressions. The rebelliousness that she develops throughout the film is more unexpected in her than in other actresses. What's more she is very beautiful and a virtuoso!"
La femme defendue might be seen as taking Francois Truffaut's definition of cinema as the act of "putting a beautiful woman in front of a camera and filming her" and making that look through the lens its very subject matter. Chris Darke
Prod co: Lazennec Films in co-production with Les Films de Tresor, La Sept Cinema, Lazennec Bretagne
Prod: Michel Guilloux
Dir: Philippe Harel
Scr: Eric Assous
Ph: Gilles Henry
Art dir: Francois Emmanuelli
Cos: Valerie Pozzo di Borgo
Ed: Benedicte Teiger
Cast: Isabelle Carre, Philippe Harel, Sophie Niedergang
Running time: 97 mins
Int sales: Lazennec Films
