#woman back from the brink of oblivion. what follows is a quiet‚ unhurried study of a desperate psyche‚ all the more affecting for the | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 4 months ago

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Betty (1992)

"You know, I wanted to ask Thérèse when I saw her in the cellar. I wanted to say: 'Show me your wound.' I wanted to have a wound, too. I've always been chasing that wound. I must be looking for pity. I'm not a victim. I'm not to be pitied. No one ever hurt me. I'm the one who did the hurting. I'm a fool. Say it! I blew it all. I've soiled everything, myself included."

#betty #1992 #french cinema #claude chabrol #georges simenon #marie trintignant #stéphane audran #jean françois garreaud #yves lambrecht #christiane minazzoli #pierre vernier #nathalie kousnetzoff #pierre martot #thomas chabrol #yves verhoeven #henri attal #coco bakonyi #emmanuelle bataille #mélanie blatt #powerful and devastating in equal measures. a tightly focused study of one vulnerable soul in freefall. as the titular Betty #Trintignant gives a truly phenomenal performance; her character is a self destructive alcoholic who has just broken up her marriage to the #high society son of a general and signed a document promising not to contact their young children. in a drunken reverie she stumbles into #the reassuring figure of long term Chabrol collaborator (and former wife) Audran‚ who takes it upon herself to try and nurse the younger #woman back from the brink of oblivion. what follows is a quiet‚ unhurried study of a desperate psyche‚ all the more affecting for the #subdued‚ nearly vacant performance Trintignant gives: she is a woman hollowed out by her experiences and her addictions #i was surprised to read reviews with negative responses to the character (even in reviews that appreciated the film); i felt nothing but #pity for poor Betty‚ as much a victim of her vices and her psychological makeup as the people around her‚ perhaps more so #some took issue with the very ending in which she appears to 'win' and to start a new life but i think that reading ignores everything that #comes before: there can be little doubt that Betty will destroy this too‚ that we are simply witnessing the end of one cycle and the #beginning of another. challenging‚ soul searching stuff but a truly great central performance from an actor soon cruelly taken from us

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