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01/26/06
Ladies of the Bois de Bologne (1944)
100 %
Reviews Counted: 12 Fresh: 12 Rotten:0 Average Rating: 8.3/10
Runtime: 85 mins
Synopsis: LES DAMES is the sole collaboration of two French cinema giants: Robert Bresson and Jean Cocteau. Cocteau wrote the wonderfully poetic dialogue for the film, while Bresson scripted and directed. The film bears strong connections to other classic works by both men. Like other Bresson heroes... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Maria Casares, Paul Bernard
Reviews
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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05/24/03
Top Critic
The performances by both Casares and Labourdette were strikingly captivating and were enough in themselves to carry the film.
08/28/06
Top Critic
It is slow, solemn, rigidly conventional and as stilted as a silent film, but it shows Bresson's early ability to catch sober and smoldering moods with his camera.
05/09/05
Top Critic
The fact of Bresson's as yet undeveloped style, coupled with Cocteau’s fearless lyricism, produces a one-of-a-kind film. It’s irreproducible, a jewel.
07/03/04
Bresson's treatment of the material has the marks of his later style, but it's also more overtly stylized than anything else he did later.
05/08/04
Elina Labourdette is wonderful as Agnès, conveying her character’s ethical strength with real beauty within and without.
03/02/04
Les Dames has moments of subtle power that suggest the direction Bresson’s filmmaking aesthetic would eventually take; in fact, it was the last film he made in the traditional style before striking out completely on his own.
07/22/03
Praised by such filmmakers as Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni, the film is rarely screened.
04/10/03
It is not, by any means, the best film made during the Occupation, but it is a key work in Bresson’s oeuvre and one that is surprisingly absorbing even today.
04/04/03
Like much (if not all) of Bresson's best work, it can't be assimilated to realist criteria, but it's unforgettable for its fire-and-ice evocations of tragedy in an unlikely setting.
03/27/03
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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