Ladies of the Bois de Bologne (1944)

Synopsis: LES DAMES is the sole collaboration of two French cinema giants: Robert Bresson and Jean Cocteau. Cocteau wrote the wonderfully poetic dialogue for the film, while Bresson scripted and directed. The film bears strong connections to other classic works by both men. Like other Bresson heroes... LES DAMES is the sole collaboration of two French cinema giants: Robert Bresson and Jean Cocteau. Cocteau wrote the wonderfully poetic dialogue for the film, while Bresson scripted and directed. The film bears strong connections to other classic works by both men. Like other Bresson heroes and heroines, Helen is obsessed by a single idea. She intends to make the man who broke up with her suffer by introducing him to a pretty "tramp"--a girl who actually hopes to bury her past--and have him fall deeply in love with her. Once the couple unites, Helene will alert her ex to the girl's former activities, and ruin his status-conscious life. Helene's sense of having a "mission" is reflected in the prison break planned by the hero of A MAN ESCAPED, and the quiet crimes committed by the hero of PICKPOCKET. The obsessive and potentially dangerous way that Helen's ex rushes headlong into his passion for the one-time "tramp" prefigures the classically-themed romances in Cocteau's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ORPHEUS. One element in the sumptuously photographed LES DAMES became common in both artists' repertoire: the presentation of characters who behave as if they're in a dream, sleepwalking their way to potential disaster or salvation. [More]