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La Veuve de Saint-Pierre
France/Canada 2000
Reviewed by Michael Witt
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The island of Saint-Pierre, a small French settlement off the Canadian coast, 1849. After a night of heavy drinking, fisherman Neel murders the elderly Coupard. The island authorities sentence Neel to death and request the loan of a guillotine from another French colony. While waiting for the guillotine, the authorities appoint Jean, captain of the troops in Saint-Pierre, as Neel's custodian. The captain's wife, Madame La, teaches Neel to read and lets him perform odd jobs around the island, much to the disapproval of the governing élite.
As Neel becomes integrated into the community, the residents grow reluctant to assist in his execution. Initially, the local men refuse to tow the ship carrying the guillotine into the harbour, and do so only when Neel himself volunteers to help. The island's governor successfully pressurises an aspiring immigrant to take on the job of executioner; when questioned by the governor, the captain refuses to shoot on the crowds in the event of a riot over Neel's execution. Madame La encourages Neel to flee to Newfoundland, but he voluntarily returns to his cell. Having married a local woman who bore him a baby, Neel is executed. The captain is deported to France and shot by firing squad.
Review
Director Patrice Leconte has always delighted in gliding unpredictably between genres. In addition to his work in advertising, he has continued to turn out on average a new feature each year in a variety of registers. As if to confound expectations, his new film La Veuve de Saint-Pierre bears little resemblance to his earlier foray into the costume drama genre, Ridicule. Where Ridicule playfully combined period comedy and political satire, the politics of La Veuve de Saint-Pierre - in which the murderer Neel becomes a reformed man thanks to the attentions of the kindly Madame La - can be reduced to bland slogans along the lines of 'Abolish capital punishment' and 'Beware the wrath of petit-bourgeois functionaries scorned'.
More interestingly La Veuve de Saint-Pierre is about surfaces, with the characters' attention to dress codes and behavioural rule books echoed in the film's sumptuous visuals. Working with a comparatively large budget, Leconte goes to great length to evoke the glacial blue-greys and rough textures (slate, granite, ice) of the island of Saint-Pierre on which it's set. The theme of incarceration (Neel is imprisoned for murder, French nationals are isolated on an island thousands of miles away from their native land, Saint-Pierre's governing élite's behaviour is tightly restrained by social mores) is visually reinforced by the combination of the widescreen format and tight close-ups which results in a pervasive sense of suffocation. Even in the occasional panoramic views across the frozen landscape, the enduring impression is of the crushing weight of the sky. When the arrival of spring is suggested by sudden flashes of green, the film seems to take a deep breath.
As is often observed in relation to his previous work, Leconte's five-year apprenticeship as a comic-strip artist seems to have influenced the film's crisp editing style and often refreshingly insolent mise en scène. But on this occasion the film's strident imagery ends up swamping emotional nuance. Rather than carrying a humorous or dynamic charge, forthright insertions such as the cutaways to the ship carrying the guillotine charging through the ocean come across as clumsy distractions from the fragility of the relationships at the film's heart. Similarly, the injection of gratuitous bursts of melodrama through expertly executed set pieces (the pelting of the prisoners' cart with rocks, for instance) disrupt the film's wider mood.
Leconte has claimed that it was the quality of Claude Faraldo's script and the chance to work with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil that convinced him to step into Alain Corneau's shoes (Corneau, the director of Tous les matins du monde, walked away from the project four months before shooting was due to start). But it's possible he also perceived here the opportunity for a further variation on the fine portraits of sexual desire which feature in his earlier Monsieur Hire, Le Mari de la coiffeuse and Le Parfum d'Yvonne. The principal focus of this sombre and self-consciously lyrical film is on the three-way relationship between Neel, his captor, the captain, and the captain's wife, Madame La. (The "veuve" of the title means widow, appropriately enough since La's concern for Neel ultimately leads to her husband's execution, but it's also the nickname for the guillotine). Above all, La Veuve de Saint-Pierre is constructed around three fantastic faces: Auteuil brings subtlety and intense energy to his role as the captain, Binoche embodies the statuesque La with cool precision and Emir Kusturica appears wholly at ease inside the wild but gentle Neel.
But it is in their interrelation that the film fails to convince: while the narrative ricochets suggestively from one lingering close-up to the next, it seldom delivers on the promise of emotional depth. Despite its aspiration to represent something of the transcendental power of love, La Veuve de Saint-Pierre ultimately fails to convey a genuine sense of emotional intensity or fragility.
Credits
- Director
- Patrice Leconte
- Producers
- Frédéric Brillion
- Gilles Legrand
- Screenplay
- Claude Faraldo
- Adaptation
- Patrice Leconte
- Director of Photography
- Eduardo Serra
- Editor
- Joëlle Hache
- Art Director
- Ivan Maussion
- Music
- Pascale Estève
- ©Epithète Films/France 3 Cinéma/France 2 Cinéma/Cinémaginaire Inc./Production Veuve Saint-Pierre Inc.
- Production Companies
- Gilles Legrand & Frédéric Brillion present an Epithète Films/ Cinémaginaire/France 3 Cinéma/France 2 Cinéma co-production
- With the participation of Universal Pictures (France)/Centre National de la Cinématographie/ Canal+/Téléfilm Canada/ SODEC/Québec Crédit d'impôt cinéma et télévision
- With the collaboration of Radio Canada
- With the participation of Gras Savoye
- Co-producers
- Denise Robert
- Daniel Louis
- Fortress of Louisbourg
- Co-ordinator
- Anne O'Neill
- Production Managers
- Frédéric Blum
- Nicole Hilaréguy
- Emmanuel Legrand
- Unit Production Managers
- Rémi Bergman
- Pierre Allard
- Assistant Directors
- Grégoire Barachin
- Anne Alloucherie
- Anne Gilles
- Simon Edouard Pilon
- Jacques Pasquier
- Angus Maclean
- Olivier Chouinard
- Script Supervisor
- Marie Leconte
- Casting
- Jacques Dublin
- 2nd Unit Cameraman
- Kevin Jewison
- Special Visual Effects
- Duboi
- Special Effects
- Mario Dumont
- Pierre Turmeau
- Benoït Talenton
- Louis Pedneault
- Pierre Côté
- Lorne Dosogne
- Francis Marleau
- Costumes
- Christian Gasc
- Make-up
- Thi-Loan Nguyen
- Joël Lavau
- Kathryn Casault
- Key Hairstylists
- Isabelle Luzet
- Michel Demonteix
- Réjean Forget
- Marie-France Cardinal
- Titles/Special Optical Effects
- Arane
- Special Optical Effects
- Frédéric Papon
- Daniel Pereira de Abreu
- Music performed by
- Orchestre Philharmonique d'Ile-de-Franc
- Soloists
- Vocals:
- Eric Voegelin
- Guirec
- 1st Violin:
- Frédéric Moreau
- Alto:
- Frédéric Robin
- Violoncello:
- Alexandre Soumagne
- Accordion:
- Frédéric Guerouet
- Percussion:
- Jean-Paul Batailley
- Hautbois/Cor Anglais:
- Daniel Py
- Bandonéon:
- Gilberto Pereyra
- Conductor
- Bernard Wystraete
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Didier Lizé
- Music Consultant
- Edouard Dubois
- Direct Sound
- Paul Lainé
- Claude Hazanavicius
- Mixer
- Dominique Hennequin
- Sound Editor
- Jean Goudier
- Dialogue Editor
- Fanchon Brule
- Sound Effects
- Pascal Chauvin
- Pascal Dedeye
- Sound Effects Recordist
- Gilles Missir
- ADR Recordist
- Jean-Louis Lebras
- Post-synchronization
- Michel Filippi
- Jean-Philippe Angelini
- Katrina Heaulme
- Equestrian Advisers
- Mario Luraschi
- Pete White
- Pascal Madura
- Stunt Arranger
- Antonio Vidosa
- Armourer
- Christophe Maratier
- Cast
- Juliette Binoche
- Pauline, 'Madame La'
- Daniel Auteuil
- Jean, the captain
- Emir Kusturica
- Ariel Neel Auguste
- Michel Duchaussoy
- the governor
- Philippe Magnan
- President Venot
- Christian Charmetant
- supply and secretariat officer
- Philippe Du Janerand
- customs officer
- Reynald Bouchard
- Louis Ollivier
- Ghyslain Tremblay
- M. Chevassus
- Marc Béland
- soldier Loic
- Yves Jacques
- the rear-admiral
- Maurice Chevit
- the governor's father
- Catherine Lascault
- La Malvilain
- Dominique Quesnel
- the proprietor
- Anne-Marie Philipe
- the governor's wife
- Isabelle Spade
- President Venot's wife
- Arianne Mallet
- Julian Gutierrez
- the governor's children
- Sylvie Moreau
- Adrienne
- Geneviève Cocke
- Manon Gauthier
- washhouse women
- Marianne C. Miron
- Mme Chevassus
- Jean-Paul Rouvray
- the priest
- Michel Daigle
- Father Coupard
- Luc Guerin
- Captain Dumontier
- Niel Kroetsch
- captain of the Marie Galante
- Sylvain Eluau
- Captain Goelette
- Raymond Cloutier
- the adjutant
- Patrick Steltzer
- the brigadier
- Patrick Caux
- young soldier
- Bernard Tanguay
- the orderly
- Serge Christiaenssens
- drummer
- Martin Larocque
- town crier
- Boris Napes
- assessor
- Yvon Roy
- Granjean
- Luc Proulx
- café customer
- Kendall Negro
- the child
- Stéfan Perrault
- oarsman
- Sarah McKenna
- émilie
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 10,102 feet
- 112 minutes 15 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS
- In Colour
- Subtitles
- 2.35:1 [Panavision]