L'amour D'une Femme = the Love of a Woman

Marie, a young doctor, is setting up practice on the Island of Ouessant (off the coast of Brittany). Marie must first overcome the local male population’s built-in misogyny. Gradually, she convinces everyone that she’s as qualified for her job as any man. She shares her time between her work and Ms. Leblanc, a retired schoolteacher, with whom she has become friends. When Andre, an engineeer, arrives on the island, the equilibrium of Marie’s life is upset. This was Jean Gremillon’s last film. One of the least known of the great French directors of the 1930s, Gremillon is possibly the most ‘classic’ in his combination of realism and popular genres. Gremillon’s atmospheric realism, especially his depictions of social milieux (typographers, seamen, the provincial bourgeoisie), echoed his definition that ‘it is a question not of mechanical naturalism, but, rather, of the beauty in achieving the maximum of expression within the maximum of order.’ He also, unusually, offered portraits of remarkably strong women in ‘Le ciel est a vous’ and ‘L’amour d’une femme’, feminist heroines ‘avant la lettre’, struggling equally with work and love.” Reference: Ginette Vincendeau. The Companion to French Cinema. BFI Publishing, 1996. =Held in our collection.

Credits: Producer, Pierre Gerin ; director, Jean Gremillon ; writers, Rene Fallet, Rene Wheeler ; photography, Louis Page ; music, Henri Dutilleux ; editor, Margueritte Renoir.
Cast: Micheline Presle, Massimo Girotti, Gaby Morlay, Julien Carette, Maude Siame.