Following a fall festival premiere at Venice, a U.S. trailer has arrived for A Woman’s Life (Une Vie), the latest drama from Stéphane Brizé (The Measure of a Man), which Kino Lorber will release this May. Shot in the aesthetically-pleasing 4:3 aspect ratio (where are my Ida fans at?!), cinematographer Antoine Héberlé‘s intimate portraits are on full display amidst a delicate and ominous trailer that hints at the film’s crueler side.
We said in our review from Venice, “This is the kind of thing Lars Von Trier usual does very well. Take a complex, apparently fragile, and slightly naïve female lead; put her through the ringer; and let the audience mull over whether she’s a character who is inherently weak or strong. You sense Brizé is attempting something similar but his Jeanne is a blank canvas; a brick wall; a vaguely soggy piece of tarpaulin, adrift in the cruel winds that life has offered her. Time and time again she’s given the chance to raise the middle finger to the men who continually make her life miserable and time and time again she fails to do so.”
See the trailer below, along with a poster and synopsis.
Adapted from the novel Une vie by Guy de Maupassant, A Woman’s Life is a tale of tormented love embedded in the restrictive social and moral codes of marriage and family in 19th century Normandy. Upon finishing her schooling in a convent, young aristocrat Jeanne (Judith Chemla) marries local Viscount Julien de Lamare (Swann Arlaud), who soon reveals himself to be a miserly and unfaithful husband. As she navigates his chronic infidelity, pressure from her family and community, and the alternating joys and burdens of motherhood, Jeanne’s rosy illusions about her privileged world are slowly stripped away. French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé shoots this follow-up to his Cannes and César Award winner The Measure of a Man in constricted 4:3 Academy ratio, creating a tightly composed work that perfectly translates de Maupassant’s portrayal of life’s indifferences.
A Woman’s Life will come to theaters in New York on May 5th.