Capital Celluloid 2016 - Day 132: Wed May 11

The Story of Women (Chabrol, 1988): Cine Lumiere, 6.30pm


This film is part of the Isabelle Huppert retrospective at Cine Lumiere. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
A bit mislabeled—the French title is Une Affaire de Femmes, which translates better as “Women's Business”—Claude Chabrol's accomplished and generally uncharacteristic period film (1988), loosely adapted from a nonfiction book by lawyer Francis Szpiner, gives a plausible and wholly unsentimental account of a housewife and mother in occupied France (Isabelle Huppert at her finest) who becomes an abortionist and is sent to the guillotine for it. Married to a French soldier (Francois Cluzet) who's in a POW camp, she doesn't want to sleep with him after his return; she soon becomes the family breadwinner—a tough survivor who's also helping other women out. Chabrol's mise en scene and his handling of the period and performances are masterful.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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