pro-bassoonist

Frédéric Fonteyne's La Femme de Gilles/Gilles's Wife, winner of the C.I.C.A.E Award at the Venice Film Festival (2004) has been set for a September 7 release. Starring Emanuelle Devos (Read My Lips) and Clovis Cornillac (A Very Long Engagement) the distributed by Warner France DVD will offer English subs.

Official Site and trailer:
http://www.lafemmedegilles.com/

The following review courtesy of Boyd van Hoeij

""The title of ‘La femme de Gilles’ has enclosed in it the heart of the film, since
‘femme’ in French means both wife and more generically ‘woman’. The English
translation (‘Gilles’ wife’) does not have this ambiguity. I wonder why the
distributor has decided to translate it as ‘wife’ rather than ‘woman’? In a film
about a wife dealing with her husband’s infatuation with her sister (who initially responds favourably) this ambiguity about who really is Gilles’ woman seems entirely appropriate.

The wife in question is Elisa, portrayed in a wonderfully nuanced
performance by Emmanuelle Devos (Bienvenue en Suisse). She is married to
Gilles (Clovis Cornillac), a worker in the booming steel industry of the nineteen
thirties. They live together with their twin girls in a house just outside the city;Gilles makes enough money to get by, though the work is rough and dirty.
Elisa is a quiet woman, and with her at the centre of the film, ‘La femme the Gilles’ must be one of the quietest motion-picture of recent memory. There may be not an awful lot of talking going on, other than the strictly useful (‘could you get me some hot water’?) but underneath the surface things crackle and are about to burst when Elisa is pregnant again and her little sister Victorine (Laura Smet) starts to come around suspiciously often.

The portrait of Elisa and her quiet fight for her right to be Gilles’ woman and
wife is remarkable to say the least. Her choices and actions are all but
conventional (at least from today’s perspective; Simone de Beauvoir, in 'The
second sex' famously picked Elisa from Bourdouxhe’s novel as a woman
clearly suppressed by her husband) and yet somehow we understand what is
going on inside her head, despite the fact she speaks so little. I would even
argue against her being suppressed entirely by Gilles, though certainly an
aspect of their relationship borders on just that, but Elisa’s character is much
more complex than the complacent housewife Beauvoir suggests.

From a technical point of view, ‘La femme de Gilles’ is a gorgeous motion-
picture. The production design and photography are in one word stunning, with the four seasons running through the narrative and the small house and
vegetable garden really being presented as Elisa’s small paradise, where she
reigns when Gilles is out to work or play. The camera very often has a fixed
place, which adds to the ‘thirties’ quality as well as to the stability of the whole film. Elisa may be in turmoil, but it is inside her head, her surroundings stay firm and put. There are always foods to cook, floors to scrub and laundry to wash. These mechanical actions give a certain continuity and rest, a balance to Elisa’s thoughts and emotions.

‘La femme de Gilles’ is not for everyone. This is an example of ‘European
cinema’ (see the country-listing above!) that produces a thoughtful, motion-
picture about the inner workings of this woman’s mind that is daringly
melodramatic and as sparse with words as its photography is lush and
colourful. A lot of this film depends on your own connections, guessing and
analysis of a very quiet woman. If you go into ‘La femme de Gilles’ with an open mind, that woman might just open her heart to you."



Ciao,
Pro-b

ps
Last but not least the title is not to be associated with our member Giles

pro-bassoonist

Koch Lorber will be the US distribs. Street date is: 8/8/2006

Ciao,
Pro-B