Three Cheers for Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert is one of the best actresses (okay, actors if you insist) working in cinema today and certainly my favourite. She is famous for playing some of the most scandalous and transgressive roles in recent cinema. She has played among other roles, "sluts, nutters, illiterate murderesses, abortionists, psychopathic matrons, brothel madams, petit-bourgeois housewives purring with resentment and unslaked sexual thirsts." In her latest film Ma Mere, she shares some queasily erotic scenes with her on-screen son. The New York Times says:
The great French actress Isabelle Huppert, whose fondness for the transgressive has led her to star in movies like "The Piano Teacher" and "The School of Flesh," has finally shot the moon with this one.
I have seen only three of her films so far. In Claude Chabrol's Story of Women she plays an abortionist with such clinical and cold-hearted brilliance that it made even a radical pro-choicer like me flinch for a while. And her acting in The Piano Teacher left me profoundly disturbed. I was depressed and had lurid nightmares about blood and blades (if you don't know, don't ask) for two full weeks after watching that film. Her role in the recent I Heart Huckabees came as a welcome relief. What can be better than seeing Isabelle Huppert peddling the theory of "cruelty, manipulation and meaninglessness" and offering void and nihilistic disconnectedness as an antidote to the cloying Buddhist philosophy of Dustin Hoffman! Everything matters and everything is connected? Not for her. And so not for me!
Here is a delightful short profile of her. She is supposed to have said sometime: "Acting is a way of living out one's insanity." Check out her films to know what she meant when she said that.
3 comments:
reading reviews doesn't help either :) I think it is a very powerful film. And if you think, it is not too graphic at all. Most of the shocking scenes are either too brief or shown very obliquely, I mean showing two people kissing from behind the back of the hero? or the (ghastly) blade and blood scene...it works because it is not graphic at all. In fact if it were graphic it would not have worked.
The film affects because it is so clinically done...the director doesn't leave any room for emotional outlet or closure!
I was depressed and had lurid nightmares about blood and blades (if you don't know, don't ask) for two full weeks after watching that film
:) When masochism fascinates you, drop me a mail, I will send you a list of foreign films/books (masterpieces) with the same lineage ;)
Then you can author a book "Pattern of my nightmares". Please do mention my name in acknowledgement ;)
We can begin with I am Curious (Yellow/Blue) (seen?).
Sadism aside, I like Isabelle Huppert. Ofcourse, she had her training from
Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique. I have to watch 8 Femmes this Tuesday :)
Haven't seen The Piano Teacher as yet (though the book is brilliant and i love Jelinek's writing :)
-b
Haven't seen those "Curious" movies...but they do look very interesting. Thanks!
Masochism? Wait for my email ;)
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