8
Women (8 Femmes), directed by François
Ozon, takes place at Christmas in a snowbound family estate
in the 1950s, thus the French answer to Agatha Christie's
The Mousetrap (1952). Early in the film, Marcel (played by
Dominique Lamure), the husband and only man in the story,
is exposed as having been stabbed fatally in his bed, an apparent
victim of a murder committed by one of perhaps eight possible
suspects. With the telephone line cut, and the snow soon piled
so high that there is no way to leave the estate, accusations
of culpability are rife. The women respond with confessions
that they have all been victims of the unfulfilled promise
of happiness in their lives. To lighten their melodramatic
stories, nearly each woman sings a song, and indeed 8
Women would be classified as a musical comedy
if there were a chorus. The dialog-driven plot unmasks many
ways in which women are abused--by themselves, by each other,
or by men--and how they fight back stealthily to ensure that
their abusers will be denied peace of mind. The principal
abuser, however, is confined to his room, unable to defend
himself. Gaby (played by Catherine Deneuve) is his beautiful
wife, amply satisfied materially but never tasting love from
her philandering husband. Augustine (played by Isabelle Huppert),
his neurotic sister-in-law, later transforms herself into
a sexy woman and thus achieves some redemption. Pierrette
(played by Fanny Ardant) is his sister, evidently interested
only in his money, but he is stingy. Louise (played by Emmanuelle
Béart), his housemaid, tries to make him sexually dependent
but discovers that he only enjoys her because she is subservient;
with knowledge that her employer is dead, she asserts her
independence. Mamy (played by Danielle Darrieux), his mother-in-law
(and mother of Augustine), pretends to be an invalid to get
him to support her, and then emerges from her wheelchair on
hearing of his demise. Young Suzon (played by Virginie Ledoyen),
his oldest daughter, wants to tell him that she is pregnant,
but does not have to fear his possible wrath on learning that
he is dead. Catherine (played by Ludivine Sagnier), his youngest
daughter, presumably dislikes him for sheltering her, as she
is still a virgin. That leaves Madame Chanel (played by Firmine
Richard), his cook, who blurts out early in the film that
she knows something, but she keeps her tongue when an unknown
person suddenly fires a shot in the air in her presence. Even
for a clever filmviewer, the solution to the "whodunit"
is not immediately apparent, though the "whatdunit"
is quite obvious. MH
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