La prisonnière (film)

La prisonnière, sometimes known as Woman in Chains, is a French film written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot that was released in 1968. It is about an attractive young woman living with an avant-garde artist who falls disastrously for the voyeuristic owner of the gallery which shows her husband's work. Clouzot's only film completed in colour, it was the last of his career.

Clouzot and his wife

Plot

Stanislas, wealthy unmarried owner of an art gallery in Paris, is friend and patron to Gilbert, a creator of progressive artworks, who lives in a little suburban flat with Josée, a television editor. At the opening night of an exhibition, Gilbert goes off with an attractive young woman who is an influential critic. Left alone, Josée goes back with Stanislas to his luxurious flat, where he shows her a photograph he had taken of a naked woman in bondage. Though she is shocked and leaves, the allure of Stanislas and of his pornographic image works in her mind until one day she asks him if she can sit in on a photo session. Finding herself increasingly excited by the rising erotic tension of the shoot and by the sexiness of the pretty young model, Josée angers Stanislas by leaving in confusion. The two make it up however and Josée starts posing for him, but she wants more than this artificial relationship. Unhappy at her unexplained absences, Gilbert goes on a business trip to Germany and Josée lures Stanislas into taking her to a hotel in Brittany. After a night together, he has second thoughts and abandons her there. Deeply hurt at this behaviour, Josée tells all to Gilbert on his return. He rushes off to Stanislas' flat, intending to kill him, but the two reach a sort of reconciliation. Following in her own car, Josée shoots a level crossing and is hit by a train. Coming out of her coma in hospital, she thinks that Gilbert waiting by the bedside is Stanislas come to reclaim her.

Cast

• Laurent Terzieff : Stanislas, art gallery owner
• Bernard Fresson : Gilbert, avant-garde artist
• Élisabeth Wiener : Josée, Gilbert's partner
• Dany Carrel : Maguy, Stanislas' model
• Michel Piccoli : guest at the gallery
• Charles Vanel : guest at the gallery
• Joanna Shimkus : guest at the gallery

Themes

The film is close in theme to some other pictures of the time. Both Antonioni's Blow Up and Powell's Peeping Tom explored the dark links between men who make erotic images of women, films about such men and their models, and the viewers of such films, while Buñuel's Belle de jour acted out the sadomasochistic fantasies of a beautiful middle-class woman. Contemporary also are its visual elements of pop and psychedelic art, including a striking dream sequence which prefigures Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Reception

Review sites surveyed on 17 February 2016 give ratings of 67% at SensCritique, 70% at Rotten Tomatoes, 71% at IMDb and 72% at Allociné.

References

External links

• La prisonnière at the Internet Movie Database
• La prisonnière at Rotten Tomatoes