Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne

Made during the last days of the Occupation, the film combines the superficial glamour of Parisian high society with the seething passions and jealousies that cause a spurned femme fatale, Helene (Maria Casares) to seek her ex-lover’s humiliation (Paul Bernard). Helene seeks out two former friends, madame D (Lucienne Bogaert) and her daughter Agnes (Elina Labourdette), a talented dancer who has been forced into prostitution to support herself and her mother. After rescuing them from their desparate situation, Helene ensures that Jean meets Agnes, in the knowledge that he will fall in love and pursue her affections, urged on by Helene’s description of Agnes’s unattainability and chasteness. The inexorable logic of Helene’s scheme seems complete when Jean and Agnes are married, but through the revelation of truth Bresson delivers one of the most moving affirmations of the transcendent and redemptive powers of love. With dialogue written by writer/filmmaker Jean Cocteau, “Les Dames du Bois du Boulogne” was adapted to the screen by Bresson from an anecdote in Denis Diderot’s “Jacques Le Fataliste”. In French with English sub-titles.