A French woman = Une femme Francaise

A French Woman ambitiously recreates the historical settings of an unhappy love affair against the backdrop of France’s colonial wars (and subsequent defeats). Jeanne ( Emmanuelle Beart) marries Louis (Daniel Auteuil), a soldier who is soon called to combat in World War II, the first of his long absences for military duty. Feeling suffocated when her husband is away, Jeanne has adulterous affairs. No matter how public her infidelities, Louis always takes her back so that the family life (and bourgeois order) with their children can resume before his next far-off posting. Jeanne’s longest affair is with Mathias (Gabriel Barylli), whom she meets when her husband is stationed in postwar Berlin; Mathias follows her to France. Beart’s intense performance as a woman whose life is dominated by her romantic passions vividly shows the pain of an often unsympathetic and self-obsesessed character. Wargnier’s film is reminiscent of the Douglas Sirk melodramas of the 50’s. In French with English sub-titles.