Alexandre Astruc reveals the perverse side of gothic romance in this highly stylized adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant tale in which a young married couple finds extreme unhappiness in an isolated country mansion. What begins as a fairy tale romance between the pretty Maria Schell and the handsome Christian Marquand very soon shows its “true colors”: as the groom evolves into something resembling a lumbering bear disturbed in hibernation and fit to do bodily harm, the bride becomes an annoying, pathetic little mouse - fit to be tied. A story of passion and deception as rich and thick as a French sauce develops, but the characters, somehow, do not. It soon becomes evident that Astruc's method has little to do with character development and everything to do with mise-en-scène: decor and color. Color is coded; landscape is used to isolate and to surrealize.
Astruc and cinematographer Claude Renoir's stylistic goal is fascinating: to “use color in much the same fashion as it was used by the Impressionist painters; as a determinative element of the ‘mise-en-scène.' In Une Vie, we have captured the gray and yellow light of the Brittany and Normandy landscapes, the light of which Corot was so fond, not just for decorative value, but as an integral part of the drama, as another protagonist, somewhat like the presence of destiny which hovers continually over the heroine.”
The film is disturbingly absurd, in part intentionally, but even more so for its suspiciously sincere elements. Astruc has stated, “Ultimately, it boils down to capturing behind a story, beneath the action, a certain secret, a certain mystery: that of human destiny.” This, under the gothic circumstances, is not a pretty picture; its full-fledged romance borders on the loneliness of a television soap. (JB)

Note: Une Vie repeated July 8.