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Review
It is quite remarkable that, when the greatest French films are cited, how often so many
lesser known masterpieces get overlooked. The works of the director Jean Grémillon
often suffer this fate, and those have seen any of his better films, of which L’Étrange
Madame X is a good example, will share this sentiment.
L’Étrange Madame X is a simple story about love, deception and infidelity, but Grémillon’s masterly direction and the calibre of the acting performances elevate the film to the status of a masterpiece. Few French films of the period in which this film was made genuinely have the power to captivate and move the audience in the way that this film does. Although watching this film is an emotionally draining experience, it does not insult its audience with cheap sentimentality or excessive melodrama. As in the best films, it is the reactions of the characters to their predicament, not the events themselves, which hook the spectator and trigger a profound emotional response. What makes this a particularly noteworthy film is the quality of the acting. Michèle Morgan’s performance, particularly at the end of the film, is almost heart-breaking, making this one of her most memorable screen appearances. Her performance is heightened by her casting opposite Henri Vidal, her husband at the time (who died within a decade of the film being made, at the tragically young age of 40). Vidal’s performance is nearly as impressive as Morgan’s and their on-screen romance has a real frisson of believability. L’Étrange Madame X is also an interesting film because although it is solidly anchored in the dreary class-ridden years after the Second World War, it has a strange modernity and accesibility. It belongs to a rare category of films which echoes the grandeur of the monumental classics of the late 1930s whilst presaging the emergence of the auteur approach to film-making. Elements of poetic realism and Nouvelle Vague can easily be seen in the film side-by-side, reminiscent of some of some of the works of that other great underrated director of the 1950s, Jacques Becker. Like so much of Jean Grémillon’s oeuvre, L’Étrange Madame X is an impressive and spell-binding work that surely deserves much wider appreciation than it has enjoyed to date. © James Travers 2001 Write a review for this film...User Comments
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Director:
Jean Grémillon
Starring: Michèle Morgan, Henri Vidal, Arlette Thomas, Louise Conte, Robert Vattier Synopsis
A young working class man Etienne believes he has found the perfect woman in Irène,
a beautiful, affectionate, loving partner who appears to be devoted to him. But
Irène is not the simple chambermaid she pretends to be – she is in truth the wife
of a wealthy society man. She is content with her double life, the idyllic romance
with Etienne and the comfortable bourgeois life with her husband Jacques, until she becomes
pregnant by Etienne. When the baby is born, Etienne presses her to marry him, and
she reluctantly agrees. But their romance is ill-fated. Etienne’s plans to set up
his own business are ruined and then, on New Year’s Eve, the baby falls grievously ill.
Desperate, Etienne hastens to the mansion where Irène claims to work...
Credits
 More French Drama  More French Romance |
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