![]() The film avoids veering into exploitation by simply showing the patients as they are and not sensationalizing the material. ![]() Dumont often films Binoche straight on from behind, static in the center of the goings-on, and the actress’s body language is every bit as affecting as her facial expressions.ĭumont may be courting controversy by using real mental patients, but the decision yields results that couldn’t have been achieved otherwise. ![]() It does little to help the reticent artist. They laugh and smile through their missing teeth, bang spoons against tables and compound her feelings of coming unglued. Her fellow inmates, played by actual patients, feed her madness. The asylum feels like a convent, with a sunny courtyard juxtaposed against dingy interiors. She remains intelligent and articulate throughout her travails, while most of her fellow inmates are too disabled to speak.ĭumont’s formal compositions emphasize the contrast between Binoche’s demeanor and the grotesqueries of the sanitarium. But much of her time is spent in melancholy quietude, trying to keep a grip on her mind while madness swarms around her. ![]() She’s liable to abruptly succumb to fits of anger or depression. She believes Rodin is somehow plotting against her and trying to steal her work, even though their relationship ended 20 years ago. She waits for the visit of her brother, Paul, the famed poet, mystic and strict Catholic, although it’s unclear what that visit might accomplish.ĭumont and Binoche present Claudel as a woman who is not entirely in her right mind, but is no more at home in the asylum than she would be in the outside world. Her family has sent her there against her will, and she lives with a mix of confusion and paranoia. Instead, he journeys into alienation and desperation, demanding and rewarding his audience’s attention.Īs the film begins, our heroine has already sculpted her last work and been confined to an asylum in the south of France. Dumont isn’t interested in building a conventional narrative around the short timeframe that the film does explore, let alone her entire life. We don’t see Claudel’s youth, or her time as famed sculptor Auguste Rodin’s assistant and mistress, or her emergence as a bold, brilliant artist. ![]() This is by no means a conventional biopic. Built around a poignant, controlled performance from Juliette Binoche, French writer/director Bruno Dumont’s film looks to understand the darkness that covered Camille Claudel in 1915-and the remaining 30 years of her life. Art and madness have always coexisted, but Camille Claudel, 1915 is about what happens when you take away the art and stifle a troubled, extraordinary mind. ![]()
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