A Homage to Isabelle Huppert

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 A Homage to Isabelle Huppert  

2007.9.13(Thu)-9.23(Sun)

*Closed on Mondays

Venue | Cinematheque Pusan (Haeundae Yachting Center)  

Tickets | 4,000 Won per Screening  

Contacts | 051-742-5377(ext 5), cinema.piff.org,

                    [email protected]

*Please note that English subtitles
will not be offered.

Celebrated for her versatility and fearless approach to the filmmaking process, French actress Isabelle Huppert (b. 1955) has portrayed some of European cinemas most unsentimental, libidinous and provocative female characters. The seductive self-awareness and subtlety that characterise her remarkable career have led many to describe her as one of the greatest actresses working in cinema today. Huppert has featured in over 80 critically celebrated feature films since her debut in 1971 and has worked with many of Europe’s pre-eminent directors, including Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Haneke, Maurice Pialat, Joseph Losey, Raúl Ruiz, Diane Kurys and Bertrand Tavernier.

In 1977, Huppert received a Best Actress Award from the British cademy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for The Lacemaker 1977, bringing her beguiling talents to an international audience. Huppert has also received two Best Actress Awards at the Cannes International Film Festival (for Violette Nozière in 1978 and La Pianiste in 2001), two Volpi Cups from the Venice International Film Festival (for Story of Women in 1989 and The Ceremony in 1995) as well as a César Award from theFrench Academy for her role in The Ceremony. Acknowledging the actress’s significant contribution to cinema, Huppert was recipient of the Special Lion from the Venice International Film Festival in 2005 and received the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2003.

A Homage to Isabelle Huppert is presented in partnership with Alliance Française, Pusan and the Embassy of France in Korea.  

레이스 짜는 여인 La Dentellière The Lacemaker

1977,108min,35mm,Color, France 

Dir_ Claude Goretta    

In the role that brought her international attention, Isabelle Huppert plays Béatrice, an apprentice beautician from Paris whose nickname Pomme (meaning Apple) reflects her vitality and innocence. While holidaying in Normandy she meets François (Yves Beneyton), a well-spoken student from the Sorbonne who is captivated by her shyness and sexual innocence. Their seaside romance is heartfelt but short-lived. Returning to their ordinary lives in Paris, class disparities prompt the self-conscious François to end the relationship abruptly. Pomme’s shame and rejection has devastating and lasting consequences. Huppert is heartbreaking as the fragile young girl, imbuing the character with awkwardness and heightened sensitivity. Claude Goretta’s study of love and class difference refers to the intimate painting The Lacemaker c.1669–71 by Johannes Vermeer. Like Vermeer’s lacemaker, hermetically sealed in a world of domesticity, Pomme finds herself trapped in a demoralising solitude. 

할 수 있는 자가 구하라: 인생 Sauve qui peut : la vie Slow Motion

1979,87min,35mm,Color,France

Dir_ Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard completed Slow Motion after an eight-year break from filmmaking, labelling it his ‘second first film’. The English title refers to the use of step-printed slow motion to convey the emotional reactions of characters. Godard structures the film around five chapters that deal metaphorically with aspects of modern life that have been distorted by capitalism: ‘Life’, ‘The Imaginary’, ‘Fear’, ‘Trade’ and ‘Music’. These chapters are connected by the three characters who are facing major changes in their lives: Paul Godard (Jacques Dutronc), a television director recently separated from his wife and daughter; Denise Rimbaud (Nathalie Baye), a writer who plans to move to the country when her relationship ends; and Isabelle Rivière (Isabelle Huppert), a prostitute looking for accommodation and a new vocation. Godard reportedly offered Huppert one statement about her character: ‘Hers is the face of suffering’.   

룰루 Loulou Loulou

1980,110min,35mm,Color, Frnace

Dir_ Maurice Pialat

Loulou is a challenging film about infidelity, sexual liberation and the emotional harm men inflict on women in the name of love. After meeting the charismatic and brutish Loulou (Gérard Depardieu) at a Paris disco, Nelly (Isabelle Huppert) abandons her middle-class life with the possessive André (Guy Marchand). Nelly and the thieving layabout Loulou check into a hotel and rarely leave their bed. Nelly continues to work for André and live with Loulou until an unexpected pregnancy further complicates the situation. Huppert is fresh and enigmatic, pushing the chemistry between Nelly and Loulou to fever pitch. Nelly’s destructive relationship with both men is told with a cruel and bitter humour devoid of melodrama. The film took over two years to complete; the autobiographical nature of the screenplay left director Maurice Pialat wishing he had never made it.   

첫 눈에 반하다 Coup de foudre At First Sight

1983,113min,35mm,Color,France

Dir_ Diane Kurys

At First Sight examines a close bond of friendship between two women that threatens the stability of their families. During the German occupation of France, Helena ‘Lena’ Weber (Isabelle Huppert), a Jewish refugee, escapes a concentration camp by marrying an ex-legionnaire who proposes to her at first sight. In the aftermath of war, Lena moves to Lyon, where she meets the confident and sophisticated artist Madeline (Miou-Miou), who has also escaped hardship by marrying a hustler. Both women are in unhappy marriages;Lena asks, ‘What future is there for me?’ As their friendship deepens they begin to exclude their husbands and children, discovering a genuine satisfaction with each other. Huppert gives a subtle performance as the unfulfilled Lena, drifting through life, isolated and silent. Based on the marital difficulties and life experiences of director Diana Kurys’s mother, At First Sight is a sensitive and ultimately tragic story about the experience of love in postwar France.

마담 보바리 Madame Bovary Madame Bovary

1991,140min,35mm,Color,France

Dir_Claude Chabrol 

Madame Bovary is Claude Chabrol’s faithful adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s scandalous novel of 1856. Chabrol’s screenplay mimics the clinical precision of Flaubert’s dialogue and cinematographer Jean Rabier makes great use of location photography, shooting near Rouen where Flaubert lived. When Emma (Isabelle Huppert) marries the regional doctor Charles Bovary (Jean-Francois Balmer) to escape the boredom of rural life with her parents, she finds herself even more restless in marriage. Her desire is unleashed when she is introduced to the handsome Rodolphe Boulanger (Christopher Malavoy). A protracted affair follows. When Emma realises Boulanger’s intentions are only fleeting, she is left to face the interminable consequences of her infidelities and irresponsible spending. Huppert gives a riveting performance as the poised and cold Emma Bovary, a tragic figure driven by a vague sense of passion to rebel against the conventions that stifle her. While we feel sympathy for her claustrophobia amid the expectations of France’s provincial bourgeoisie, Emma remains a thoroughly dislikeable character.   

이별 La Séparation The Separation

1994,88min,35mm,Color,France

Dir_ Christian Vincent  

Based on the novel by Dan Franck, The Separation measures the misunderstandings and miscommunications of the estranged couple with a deeply felt realism. Christian Vincent’s direction allows the gestures of a detached Anne and suffering Pierre to only hint at the pain and uncertainty both feel. The sense of loss is barely communicable — Anne struggles to make eye contact and Pierre clings desperately, rationalising the continuation of a broken partnership. The strength of this emotional dilemma lies in the lack of specific reasons for the infidelity; the film offers no simple resolution. 

의식  La Cérémonie  A Judgement in Stone

1995,111min,35mm,Color,France

Dir_ Claude Chabrol

The Ceremony is a tense and unnerving thriller that takes its title from an expression used during the French Revolution to describe a prisoner’s walk to the guillotine. Sophie Bonhomme (Sandrine Bonnaire) is an illiterate housekeeper hired by the upper-middle-class Lelièvre family who are unaware of her inability to read or write. Ashamed by her lack of education, Sophie begins an intimate friendship with the accepting Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), a troubled postal clerk who secretly reads the Lelièvres’ mail. The women share dark pasts and their growing resentment of inequality leads to a drastic and violent outcome for the Lelièvre family. Ruth Rendell’s novel A Judgment in Stone 1977 provides the narrative that Claude Chabrol and psychoanalyst co-writer Caroline Eliacheff interpret as an angry examination of class and sexual difference. Chabrol refuses to provide an explanation for the disturbing criminal behaviour and obsessions of both women. Chabrol jokingly asserted The Ceremony was the last Marxist film to deal with class struggle, and indeed the film’s psychology of violence stems from personal, sexual and class-related tensions.

왕의 딸 Saint-Cyr The King's Daughters 

1999,99min,35mm,Color,France 

Dir_ Patricia Mazuy

Set at the end of the seventeenth century, Patricia Mazuy’s costume drama reconstructs the life of Madame de Maintenon, a lowly courtesan who became the second and last wife of Louis XIV. Madame de Maintenon opens a finishing school for the daughters of nobility killed during battle, instilling through her tutelage a liberal education and the development of artistic skills. But when the rebellious Anne de Grandcamp (Morgan More) and Lucie de Fontenelle (Nina Meurisse) lead the performance of a moral fable by Jean Racine for the court, Madame de Maintenon foresees in their burgeoning sexuality a threat to her authority. She commits herself and the students to a destructive quest for religious purity, reflecting the impact of Jansenism on French culture at the time. Adapted from the novel La Maison d’Esther 1994 by Yves Dangerfield, The King’s Daughter spent seven years in production and features impeccable production design by Thierry Francois and costumes by Edith Vesperini and Jean-Daniel Vuillermoz. As Madame de Maintenon, Isabelle Huppert is radiant alongside a cast of unknown young actresses.

피아니스트 La Pianiste The Piano Teacher

2000,130min,35mm,Color, France 

Dir_Michael Haneke

Based on the autobiographical novel Die Klavierspielerin 1983 by Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, La Pianiste is a harrowing drama about sexual dysfunction and the pursuit of romantic fulfilment. At the Vienna Academy, a destructive relationship develops between Walter Klemmer (Benoît Magimel), a handsome and arrogant student, and Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert), his indifferent and masochistic piano teacher. Erika presents a disciplined and repressed exterior in her daily life, broken by expressions of sexuality and cruelty she enacts upon students, strangers, her possessive mother and herself. Franz Schubert’s song cycle ‘Winterreise’ (Winter journey) underlines Erika’s coldness and desolation. Convinced that men confuse seduction for love, her final gesture is an astonishing and defiant statement. Huppert gives a restrained and clinical performance, which many have described as the most devastating and poignant of her career. Director and scriptwriter Michael Haneke tests the limits of empathy for Erika; her inner struggle with powerlessness and aggression is a difficult but ultimately rewarding experience.  

약속된 인생 La Vie promise The Promised Life

2001,93min,35mm,Color, France

Dir_ Olivier Dahan

The Promised Life is a road movie that traces the disjointed journey of two drifters. Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert), a cold-hearted prostitute from Nice, is forced to reconcile with her traumatic past when Laurence, the estranged daughter she abandoned years earlier, reappears in her life. In a chance encounter, Laurence stabs Sylvia’s merciless pimp, sending them both on a journey to Ghost River in search of refuge and Sylvia’s former husband. Huppert delivers an extraordinary and understated performance. Almost unrecognisable with bleached hair, Huppert expresses the loneliness and vulnerability of Sylvia with a mournful introspection and dignity. Olivier Dahan’s background in music videos is evident in the film’s production design and editing, creating rhythmic montages that are at times distracting. Cinematographer Alex Lamargue’s wide-screen travelogues through landscapes from Provence to the Rhône-Alpes regions are captivating.