Alain Cavalier
La chamade

In the past, films of good technical quality have often been made based on literary works of great level and appeal. The transition from the written text to the screen is sometimes so evident that one is compelled to revisit the novel. In the case of the film reviewed here ("La chamade"), I do not see a qualitative discrepancy: the cinematic adaptation is faithful to the text. It is worth noting that the author of the novel, Francoise Sagan, has been somewhat forgotten (having died a few years ago in complete indigence). Yet, she experienced well-deserved success during her life when, at just nineteen, she published her debut novel "Bon jour tristesse" in 1954, causing a scandal with its disenchanted depiction of the existential boredom of young French people of the time (so much so that the enlightened Vatican authorities saw fit to put Sagan's novel on the index..).

With this transgressive aura, the author brilliantly continued her literary career until publishing, in 1965, "La chamade" from which the eponymous film was made in 1968. I recently rewatched it on YouTube and managed to purchase a copy of the DVD from a French retailer (it is unfindable in Italy).

But what can pique interest in this film from so long ago? If one adheres to the bare-bones plot, it doesn't go beyond a banal love triangle. At the center of the story is Lucile, a charming young woman connected to Marcel, a wealthy middle-aged man (an unforgettable Michel Piccoli) who pampers and spoils her completely. Until one fine day, Lucile meets a handsome young man named Antoine who is far from rich, having to work in the publishing world. It's love at first sight, but the new life for Lucile also involves sacrifices, a job in the archive of a publishing house. Needless to say, the protagonist is not suited for all this; moreover, she discovers she is pregnant and, having to choose, she returns to her old love who will not only provide her with the financial means for the abortion expenses but will take her back, archiving the betrayal.

Summed up like this, it might pass for any romantic novel in the vein of Liala. But beneath the surface, one can find a faithful cross-section of life in the affluent French society of the 1960s, right before the student revolt of May 1968 in Paris. Here, the characters lead a golden existence amid comforts and parties, and the protagonist Lucile believes she is fulfilled just by loving and being maintained by a high bourgeois. Certainly, then she happens to meet a handsome peer who, to support himself, has to perform a normal job that's not paid so well. Lucile is undoubtedly an incurable romantic, she also happens to casually read a sentence by William Faulkner that, in essence, praises the pleasure of a carefree life without emotional distress or social obligations such as work. She takes it literally, stops showing up at the office, and deludes herself that it's enough to love the unsuspecting Antoine desperately (who will have reason to be angry when he finds out).

All this makes me think that Lucile, a woman with romantic behavior and not at all feminist, still raises an important and widely debated issue: can work provide satisfaction to those who perform it, can it be a means of fulfilling one's possibilities and expectations? Or is it merely a cause of alienation and exploitation? What emerges in this story is that the protagonist cannot do without money, selling some of her jewelry to afford certain comforts. And this brings her back to the fold, returning to Marcel. For a woman like her, it is still too soon to become aware of her condition as a subordinate woman, the ideals of female emancipation and liberation that would emerge at the end of the 1960s in France and the West can wait for her.

A film that, viewed today after so much water has flowed under the bridges, can make us reflect on such a female character blind in love but not to the point of giving up certain comforts and vices. Rather, what doesn't quite convince me is Catherine Deneuve's performance in the role of Lucile. Sure, she is still talented and beautiful (at the time of the film, she was 24, in the full bloom of beauty). But seeing her like this, imbued with an icy allure, reminds me of certain women so perfect that they go into crisis if a single hair is out of place by a millimeter. And here she plays a passionate woman, who suffers from love and has to make a painful decision like having an abortion. Perhaps instead of the magazine-cover beautiful Deneuve, an actress with a more fiery beauty, in the style of Brigitte Bardot (by then slightly older than Deneuve), might have been more suitable. One has to be content, though (and besides, Deneuve was in her own way a sex symbol, populating the erotic dreams of billions of men..).