THE WIDOW OF SAINT-PIERRE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
What does a little town do if they condemn a murderer to death and they have neither the means nor the man to carry out the sentence? Based on a true story, the movie is set in 1849 on the remote French island of Saint-Pierre, off the coast of Newfoundland. Without a guillotine or an executioner, the town is forced to wait.
THE WIDOW OF SAINT-PIERRE (LA VEUVE DE SAINT-PIERRE) reunites the male lead (Daniel Auteuil), writer (Claude Faraldo) and director (Patrice Leconte) of last year's art house hit, THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE, about the sexy art of knife throwing. Like THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE, the script is again a bit thin, but the acting is quite good, and Eduardo Serra's cinematography is chillingly evocative. You've seen Serra's stunning work most recently in UNBREAKABLE and most spectacularly in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME.
After being promptly tried and convicted of murder, Neel Auguste (Emir Kusturica) is sent to wait indefinitely in a cell in the island's military compound. Luckily for him, the wife of the captain in charge turns out to a woman with extremely liberal ideas when it comes to prisoner's rights. "Men are bad one day and good the next. I'm sure of that," she says. Known as Madame La, a shortened version of Madame La Capitaine, she is played warmly by Juliette Binoche, the recent Oscar nominee for CHOCOLAT, an honor that she didn't really deserve. She is good here as she is in CHOCOLAT, but neither performance is worthy of an Academy Award. There is an important difference between good and great.
Living on the second floor of the compound, the captain (Auteuil) and his wife begin treating the convict with the graciousness that one would accord a guest. With an unlocked cell, Neel is free to come and go at will. A sweet and gentle man who made one hideous mistake in his life, Neel would no sooner bolt for his freedom than your kids would leave forever if you didn't lock the door.
The relationship among this unusual threesome, the career soldier, the soldier's wife and the criminal, evolves in ways both predictable and quite unpredictable. The prisoner goes from being scorned by the townsfolk to being a local hero. The civilian authorities, however, view him as nothing more than an embarrassment and a big thorn in their sides.
When it begins to look like Neel's execution may be carried out, the working class members of the island start to revolt. A never satisfactorily explored subtheme involves the political undercurrents of that period of French history. "Uprising strengthen regimes that they don't overthrow," the head of the island government, quoting Victor Hugo, says of the potential for revolutionary acts among the local peasants. It is a cocky attitude, but that was a time when the ruling class had a much better chance of keeping their heads than did those of lesser means. Or did they? THE WIDOW OF SAINT-PIERRE makes you want to crack open your history books and learn more. It's an intriguing tale.
THE WIDOW OF SAINT-PIERRE runs 1:47. The film is in French with English subtitles. It is rated R for a scene of sexuality and brief violence and would be acceptable for teenagers.
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