Film

La Femme Défendue (1997)

Director: Philippe Harel

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

An intriguing if flawed experiment in cinematic storytelling. A 22-year-old woman (Carré) hesitantly enters into an affair with a 39-year-old man (Harel), who's married with a kid. The film's a shrewd analysis of an adulterous relationship, but what lifts it out of the ordinary is that it's shot with a subjective camera from the man's PoV (Harel appears only briefly in reflection). The narrative is limited to the man's conversations with his lover, so that what we see is almost entirely Carré (who carries the film impressively). More than a gimmick, this device puts the viewer in a complex position - somewhere between contempt and complicity - with regard to the weak-willed, manipulative seducer. Regrettably, the story sometimes lacks the dramatic drive to match this potentially interesting conceit.

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