Therese Desqueyroux

I walked into the bird theater to watch Therese Desqueyrouxand when I came out the streets were covered in snow!

Even though the acting was good- restrained performances and palpable tensions, at times I could only see Audrey Tautou instead of Therese.It didn’t help that I had just seen Coco Before Chanel (which she also stars in) so all I could think about were the differences between her characters and their styles especially since they were both set in the 1920s in France.

The movie makes me want to read the book. It is about individuality, social expectations, and it is definitely about religious faith, specifically Catholicism. I have a feeling the movie doesn’t do the Nobel Prize winning novel justice but it was well thought out and the metaphors were there. For example, Aunt Clara’s death happens exactly at the moment Therese is about to take poison and commit suicide. Clara basically gives up her life for her niece and in a sense absolves her sin. The Desqueyroux family makes a show of going to church on Sundays but they barely tolerate Aunt Clara to the point of marginalizing her.

Visually, it was full of beautiful scenes of the countryside of France I really liked the red sailboat floating along the water and the gorgeous Portuguese neighbor Jean Azevedo.

The picture is of the actors, directors and everyone involved at both universities that were being recognized before the movie started.

I have enjoyed being forced to watch French cinema over the last few days and have opted to watch other French movies in my spare time like: Trois Couleurs: Rouge, Coco Before Chanel, and after watching Renoir I plan to see Jean Renoir's masterpiece The Rules Of The Game which follows Citizen Kane and Vertigo as one of the best movies of all time. 

After living in Richmond for two years I can finally say I have been to the Byrd and witnessed Bob Gulledge in action playing the Mighty Wurlitzer organ.