2023-08-17 00:00:00
A film by Bernard Émond is always a gift, perhaps because the filmmaker and therefore his work are timeless and therefore fashionable.
We are in Trois-Rivières in the 1930s. Rose Lemay (Hélène Florent, exceptional), the archetype of the notable of the time, receives a visit from the priest (Paul Savoie) and his notary (Normand Canac-Marquis) . The two men are messengers for Paul-Émile (Martin Dubreuil), Rose’s husband, who left her years ago to live with his mistress (Marilou Mori) with whom he had three daughters. Today, the husband wants to apologize, make amends, be forgiven. Stiff, mute, imperturbable, Rose takes the shock.
Why is he coming back and what will she do? Unlike the questions, the answers are not simple. Explorer of the soul, Bernard Émond does not give explanations, the motives of his protagonists remain endlessly interpretable. Words from another age echo in the cinema hall: duty et pardon; the interventions of the man of the Church and the man of the law smack furiously of patriarchy. Desire is never named, but often shown.
Photo QMI Agency / Joël Lemay
Portrait of Bernard Émond, Martin Dubreuil and Hélène Florent for the release of the film “Une femme respectable”, by Bernard Émond, at the Château Versailles, in Montreal, on Thursday August 3, 2023.
Adaptation of a short story by Luigi Pirandello, All life, the heart in pain, the feature film has accents of Zola, Balzac, Flaubert. Bernard Émond also finds subjects that are close to his heart: alcoholism, the balance of power between social classes, betrayal, love, the couple. The sets are rich in detail, as are the costumes and the music – classical, including Fauré, Brahms and Chopin – supporting the filmmaker’s dialogues and magnificent shots.
In a world after the #MeToo movement and where Barbie prances – and that’s good – at the top of the box office with more than a billion receipts, how A respectable woman can it be topical? This is the interest and intelligence of Bernard Émond and the artisans who accompany him in his cinematographic adventures: the subject is timeless, the questions deeply human, the reflections that follow are ageless.
And, at a time when not one blockbuster lasts less than two hours and where we find ourselves hoping for the short, we wonder if Bernard Émond could not have offered us longer than 103 minutes…
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
A respectable woman arrives in theaters across the province on August 18.
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