Diary of a Chambermaid

Nominee
Golden Bear
Berlin International Film Festival

NO LONGER PLAYING

Diary of a Chambermaid

Léa Sedoux follows in the footsteps of Paulette Goddard and Jeanne Moreau as Célestine, a resentful young Parisian chambermaid who finds herself exiled to a position in the provinces. There she immediately chafes against the noxious rules and pettiness of her high-handed bourgeois mistress (Clotilde Mollet), must rebuff the groping advances of Monsieur (Hervé Pierre), and reckon with her fascination with the earthy, brooding gardener Joseph (Vincent Lindon).

Backtracking past the fetishism of Buñuel’s version to Octave Mirbeau’s original 1900 novel, Benoît Jacquot has one eye on contemporary France: the sense of social confinement, Célestine’s humiliating submission to Madame’s onerous terms of employment, and Joseph’s virulent anti-Semitism. But the turn-of-the-century setting saw the rise of Freud’s ideas about the subconscious and so Jacquot takes care to look past the characters’ outward behavior and appearance to the repression and compulsions that lie beneath.
Not Rated
Genre
Drama
Runtime
95
Language
French
Cast
Vincent Lindon, Hervé Pierre, Vincent Lacoste
Awards:
Nominee, Golden Bear, Berlin International Film Festival
There are currently no showtimes for this film. Please check back soon.