Blu-ray debut for Jean Grémillon's final full-length narrative film, THE LOVE OF A WOMAN

For all his continuing love of French cinema of many kinds, TrustMovies had somehow managed to miss viewing most, if not all, of the work of a certain French filmmaker named Jean Grémillon. The Arrow Academy arm of Arrow Video has now remedied that with its release a few months back of Grémillon's final narrative film, THE LOVE OF A WOMAN (L'amour d'une femme).

Though this was one of his last movies, perhaps it's not such a bad place to begin an appreciation of both the man and his work. According to the excellent full-length documentary feature, In Search of Jean Grémillon, that is offered as a bonus feature on the disc, what we see in this film includes much that was vitally important to this unusual filmmaker.

According to so many of the actors, other filmmakers and especially the famous film historian and co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française, Henri Langlois -- all of whom we see and hear during this 96-minute documentary -- M. Grémillon (pictured at left) was a fellow who genuinely cared about, loved and understood women about as well as any male filmmaker you can name. This is certainly borne out by The Love of a Woman, in which that fine actress Micheline Presle plays a doctor new to the seashore town where the quite aged physician has only just retired.

Ms Presle (still alive at 95!) is one of those minor icons of French cinema, equally adept in comedy or drama (Devil in the Flesh, Donkey Skin, The Five-Day Lover) who graced international screens for more than 70 years. Combining beauty, intelligence and a kind of bone-deep savvy, she was particularly good at playing career women, and here, as the new doctor in town, she excels once again.

Her love of her job and her great skill at it is demonstrable from the film's start and only grows more powerful as it continues. This is of course despite the typical sexism of the town's males, which, to Grémillon's credit, is never overdone. It is simply there -- even via the film's other protagonist, who doubles as the love interest of our doctor. He is played by Italian star Massimo Girotti (below, left, whose career spanned Visconti's Ossessione to Ferzan Ozpetek's Facing Windows), and the actor manages to bring beautifully to life a man of very ambivalent feelings about work, women and family.

On the basis of but this single film, I'd say that Grémillon was a better director than screenwriter, because his dialog is sometimes a bit too obvious and pushed, as though he is trying to fit it all into a time frame that's simply too constrained. So he leaves it to his actors to bring that dialog fully to life -- and they do.

Style-wise, the filmmaker, who made a lot of documentaries in addition to his narrative films, graces this one with a kind of doc style that concentrates upon the life of the little island off Brittany where the film takes place. It's often a fascinating thing to see, and it adds to the core of truth the film captures. (A couple of the movie's sweetest scenes involve a pair of children and their pet lamb.)

The movie is remarkably feminist, too -- way before its time (the film was released in 1953). How the idea of a woman who loves both her work and her man, even as that man struggles to understand this duality, is brought to compelling life here. Sacrifice is inevitable, but how this occurs and by whom assures that The Love of a Woman is anything but simplistic or simple-minded.

From Arrow Video and distributed here in the USA via MVD Entertainment Group, the film is available now on Blu-ray and DVD -- for purchase (and I hope for rental, as well). Click here for further info.

A queasy-making documentary for all kinds of reasons: Bart Layton's THE IMPOSTER

It seems to TrustMovies that he read an article in The New Yorker several years ago that detailed the exact story told in the new faux-documentary THE IMPOSTER. If not, then it was a tale surprisingly like that of this film. Being one of those very long New Yorker articles, it didn't get finished by TM, who only has time for reading material while he's traveling on the subway or bus. (At all other times he's in screening rooms, watching; at home, writing; or occasionally babysitting the grand-kids.) So as he watched this interesting and bizarre documentary, it began to take on a kind of second life for him. He knew it, sort of -- until the point that he didn't, and then everything became new, rather than slightly second-hand.

The filmmaker here, Bart Layton (shown at left) appears to have chosen the relatively new and increasingly traveled road taken by more and more movie documentarians: combining in some form both documentary and narrative. You can achieve this via the ever-popular "re-enactment," as James Marsh is apt to do; or the strange and lovely fantasy/dreamscape/reality combo used by Alma Har'el in Bombay Beach; or any number of shake-ups that can be grafted onto the form of the modern documentary. Layton, if I am interpreting his approach correctly, has tried to stick entirely to the facts, as known -- or to the best-guess speculation -- then hired actors to play the major roles, mouthing dialog that the real people might have spoken, and then filmed all of this in the style of a documentary. In a sense this is in some ways close to the old- (and new-) fashioned doc-style drama based on fact -- from I Want to Live to Boys Don't Cry. The difference is that Layton has filmed his tale so much in the affectless, documentary style that you could swear you were watching the real people simply behaving as best they can in front of the camera. Nice trick!

In any case, you are almost completely enfolded in this story that houses some awfully creepy characters, all the more so because they seem blithely unaware of their own creepiness. As to the story itself, it's a humdinger (or maybe a bumdinger: a humdinger that's a bummer) -- hugely strange from both the aspect of the titular imposter (a man in his 30s who likes to pretend to be a young teenager) to that of the family so eager to have its missing child back that it will overlook just about any discrepancy in fact or appearance. Are these people crazy, you begin to wonder? Or is something else far worse at work here?

That "something else" provides the film's additionally creepy kicker. This story is so full of the unbelievable (yet it happened, so you do believe) and of people doing their job very poorly (unfortunately you can believe that pretty easily, too) -- whether it be immigration officials, social workers, police or even family, whose special job, one would think, is to love and protect -- that your jaw hangs open wider and wider as the movie proceeds.

Afterward, in the quiet of remembrance, I found myself wondering if the film might have been equally effective as simply a standard, just-the-facts, investigative documentary. All this re-creation and "acting" makes it much more of a hybrid than a real doc. Yet these very things also provides a high degree of drama and suspense. There is no denying how effective is Mr. Layton's telling of this tale, which is certainly among the more interesting near-documentaries of the year.

The Imposter opens today, Friday, July 13, in New York City exclu-sively at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, where the filmmaker will appear in person tonight at the 7pm and 9:40 screenings. It begins its nationwide, limited release in 15 other cities next month. You can find all currently scheduled playdates here.