profound or pretentious?
Added 8/1/2009
For those who don't know, the director (Chereau) got a really fast start in show business, getting to direct plays while still a teenager. He took a while longer to get into movies but managed to be quite successful there as well. He seems to have been less of a hit in the world of opera, where he got into his head the idea that the theatrical part of Wagner is more important than the music. Who knew? Nevertheless, the man has a rather large ego, larger than is good for him (watch "the making of" at the end). But I digress.
Jean and Gabrielle have been married for about ten years but they sleep in separate beds and don't have sex because she tells him she can't stand the thought of his sperm inside her (I'm not making this up) and also because he thinks emotion is disgusting. Of course, they have no children; living in a large house where they are attended by several servants hand and foot (Jean is a rich dude, you see.) They throw a lot of swanky parties for the swells in their social class, drink good wine, eat fine food, and talk about, well, stuff.
Am I going to shock you if I tell you one day Gabrielle just up and leaves Jean for a man who can make feel alive and wanted? And what if I added that Jean is crushed because his property rights have been violated? I wasn't shocked either. I won't spoil it by saying how the movie ends, except to wonder what her lawyers will do to him in divorce court.
Caveat. The movie is beautiful to look at, the acting is first rate, and features a bunch of interesting and novel cinematic concepts, for those who care about such things.
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A Beautiful Enigma
Added 11/18/2008
Isabelle Huppert is one of the great actresses of French cinema. She is as beautiful in her early 50's in "Gabrielle," released in 2005, as she was in her late 20's in "La Truite," released in 1982. She is a perfect choice to play Gabrielle Hervey, a woman who leaves a note to her husband that she has left him for another man; and then returns only three hours later.
Huppert, as Gabrielle Hervey, is beautiful and enigmatic as her husband, Jean (played by Pascal Gregory), spends the rest of the evening and the next day trying to discover why she left him; for whom she left him, and what brought her back. He also wants to discover whether they can be reconciled. If so, on what terms. In the tortuous emotional process that follows Jean is impelled to discover the real person to whom he is married.
Jean Hervey is an accomplished and extremely wealthy 19th century business man. According to his own account success in business has come naturally and easily for him, at least until he finds Gabrielle's letter. His house is large and beautifully lavish with a hint of "Citizen Kane" in its gauche overabundance of sculpture. Overseeing this material world is the masterpiece of his possessions, Gabrielle.
In the opening sequence, filmed in black and white, Jean mentally brags to the viewer of his success as he walks home from the train station. He contemplates Gabrielle on this walk and the viewer is ushered into a dinner party previously given by the Herveys, filmed in color. Huppert's Gabrielle is radiant and enigmatic to all as the hostess of the dinner party. Gabrielle is especially a riddle to Jean who admires her ability to help him achieve the status he seeks at the center of a high society which he disdains, but requires as a trophy of his material success.
As the table guests engage in vigorous repartee Jean basks quietly in glory at the head of the dinner table. He admires Gabrielle's own deft, brief and perfectly hosted conversation. At the same time it is obvious that Jean has no idea of what moves her; nor does he really seem to care to explore her inner lights. She plays the role he has assigned her as he would any other instrument or employee of his business. His complacency with this arrangement after ten years of marriage is evident. When he arrives home he reads Gabrielle's letter, tears at his hair in shock, and then finds to his amazement that she has returned. Her return is a masterfully crafted scene.
The destruction of his well planned and ordered life leads to gripping tension and drama as Jean repeatedly theorizes, guesses, cajoles and pleads with Gabrielle to reveal what led to her to flee and then return. The threat of violence against the petite and physically fragile Gabrielle subsists as subtext throughout. Jean is totally dumfounded that his assumptions about Gabrielle have been destroyed by her actions. One suspects that equally frightening for Jean is that her unpredictable actions raise uncomfortable questions about other fundamental assumptions Jean has made about his life.
Yet Gabrielle is neither intimidated nor particularly revelatory in reacting to Jean's efforts to learn the answers to the questions posed by her brief disappearance and return. Gabrielle rarely reveals vulnerability; and then usually only to her servants. Jean is only given small hints why Gabrielle acted as she did. Piecing together those hints to discover Gabrielle's motivation and true character is one of the most interesting aspects of the movie for the viewer.
The reason she gives for returning is more than shocking and deliciously ironic. The gorgeous dénouement in the bedroom, which silently announces the terms upon which Gabrielle agrees to return, and Jean's reaction to it, is a great ending for a great movie.
As noted by others, "Gabrielle" is based upon the novella "The Return" by Joseph Conrad. That is to say that action, like the lighting, only supplements the dialogue. The viewer has to work to appreciate this movie but the effort is well worth it.
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Has it's moments, but not particularly engaging
Added 12/15/2007
This film is part costume drama and part psychological drama set in France just before WWI. Pascal Gregory plays a successful, wealthy businessman who lives a comfortable life in Paris. He has a house filled with fine clothes, exotic works of art, fake friends, and extravagant furniture. His most prized possession is his wife (played by Isabelle Huppert), however. The pair have a cold, unemotional relationship (even sleeping in separate rooms) which, on the surface, both appear to be contented with. Upon arriving home one day, he finds a letter written by his wife to her lover saying that she is leaving the loveless relationship with her husband. This comes as an earth-shattering thunderbolt to Greggory and throws his minutely organized perfect life into turmoil. Huppert then suddenly returns home after having changing her mind about leaving. What follows are several angst-filled days as Greggory and Huppert come to terms with what their relationship is and what they want it to be.
I think this was a very interesting idea for a film, to examine the nature of love and obsession, particularly after a sudden, dramatic event is introduced into a married couple's life. The idea of putting the film in the early 20th century added another interesting layer of complexity as both the male and female characters are constrained to their nominal roles expected of them by society at some level. In the end, however, I couldn't find even an ounce of sympathy for the main characters. Both are rich, self-absorbed, and narcissistic. Much of the emotion of the film is conveyed via monologues and internal dialogue, but without feeling sympathetic toward the characters, I found their angst (and the film overall) tedious. Great performances by Huppert (she is definitely the best actress in the world) and Greggory, these alone are worth the price of admission, but some of the favorable reviews definitely overrate this film. Gabrielle has it's moments, but it isn't more than a middlin' work overall.
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Scenes from a Loveless Marriage.
Added 10/23/2007
Surprisingly, this film received only a limited release in U.S. theaters. It opened in 2006 at the IFC Center in Manhattan before going straight to cable through IFC (which is where I first discovered it). Adapted from Joseph Conrad's short story, "The Return," Patrice Chéreau's Gabrielle (filmed in black-and-white and color) tells the story of a self-absorbed husband, Jean (Pascal Greggory), whose wife, Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert), leaves him for another man on their tenth anniversary, then changes her mind. Gabrielle says goodbye to Jean in a letter, a gesture which reveals Jean's many shortcomings not only as a husband, but as a person. Jean, we learn, loves Gabrielle "as a collector loves his most prized object." The film (truly an emotional roller coaster in the tradition of Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage) is more than a character study in arrogance and self-absorbtion. It becomes a film not so much about the disintegration of a loveless marriage, as the awakening of a woman who has come to realize how awful it is to eat with someone in a marriage who isn't hungry (as Gabrielle describes her marriage to her personal servant, Yvonne, played by Claudia Coli). Huppert is stunning as an emotionally estranged women, and Greggory's performance is exceptional. The film is rich in emotional honesty and hard truths about male-female relationships. For many, this prolonged argument between a married couple will not be an easy film to watch.
G. Merritt
6 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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Civility under pressure
Added 8/21/2007
Made after Conrad's short story "Return", this is a story of a wealthy, married couple living in predictable, stable marriage surrounded by luxury, art, salon gatherings and -- emotional restraint. Husband is a self made rich man who finds all beauty around him to be something to collect and adore from a distance. Wife on the other hand is the epithomy of class, good manners, classical beauty. Isabel Huppert is known for being able to deliver solid performance for complicated characters. Her face, beauty and the way she moves enhances the regal surroundings of the household visitors she moves around, dress she is wearing, music she listens to. But when she leaves all that for another man and then comes back to her husband within less than two hours, it opens up all the questions between her, her spouse, her relationship with the house servants, and weekly guests that are regulars at their salon. The visual beauty of the movie turns inside out to the beauty of the words and language between all these individuals that are part of such traumatic development in the household considered to be content on the way things ought to be in the high society of the 20th century. This movie is developing almost in slow motion where viewer becomes willing participant in torturing revelation about husband and wife, power switch in their marriage and realization of the truth that eventually distroys them and their relationship completely. P. Greggory and I. Huppert mash so well in their battle with words, it is absolutely tantalizing to let go of them for even a minute.
5 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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