by Mark Murton
Directed by: Bruno Nyutten
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Bio-pic charting the troubled life of French sculptress Camille Claudel (Isabelle Adjani), focusing on her tumultuous relationship with the (married) sculptor Auguste Rodin (Gérard Depardieu) whose eventual refusal to commit to her, coupled with her doubts about the worth of her own work, would drive Camille ever further from reason and reality.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Finally realising that despite his promises Rodin will never leave his wife for her, Camille sets up her own studio on the boulevard d’Italie, near the Sienne. Eschewing human company she starts to surround herself with cats. The first of these is a lovely gray cat who sitting on a windowsill watching the rain behind the sculpture Camille is currently working on.
Camille is staring at the cat, who stares back.
The same cat is next seen in the arms of Robert (Martin Berléand), a young boy who lives in the same block as Camille and who is fascinated by her and her work (a second cat can barely be seen on the floor to the left in an overhead shot). Robert continues to cradle the gray cat as he studies Camille’s sculpture.
He then hands the cat to Camille.
Cat Cattle Call: As Camille narrates a letter to brother Paul, the camera pans across her studio picking out various cats before alighting on the cat seen earlier, sitting in the same window. Camille approaches and rests her letter on the windowsill to sign it. Purring loudly, the cat nuzzles against her. Camille ignores the cat who, still purring, looks away before nuzzling up to her again.
Later, Camille is visited by journalist Juidth Cladel (Denise Chalem) and as they talk various cats fill the background (playing havoc with the film’s continuity as the cats suddenly change position or disappear altogether!)
During their exchanges it becomes clear how jealous and bitter Camille has become about Rodin and his perceived interference in her career. Paranoid that the journalist has been sent by Rodin to further discredit, she sits brooding on some steps with a ginger tabby behind her.
Finally Camille locks herself away, even boarding up the windows so no one can see inside (and the poor gray cat can’t see outside any more, either.)
Such is her success at isolating herself that when the Seinne bursts its banks in 1910, flooding much of Paris and leading to a mass evacuation, Camille is forgotten and lies on the floor upstairs as water fills the room below. As ever, various cats are in close attendance.
Eventually, Eugène Blot (Philippe Clévenot), an art dealer who acts as Camille’s agent, forces his way into the property and wades across to the stairs and up to Camille. As he tries to rouse her, two cats approach him and take a great interest in his outstretched hand (suggesting it’s either coated in something to keep them in shot or they have been trained to expect treats from the actor).
Blot is also subjected to a scene with ever-changing kitties in the background.
Having woken Camille, Blot determines to get her out to a waiting boat and gathers up two of the cats as he goes.
Camille herself scoops up a white cat (although it’s disappeared again by the time she reaches the bottom of the stairs).
Blot struggles through the thigh-deep water as the two cats struggle to get away from him!
No more cats are seen after this as Camille’s increasingly fragile mental state sets her on a downward spiral of self-destruction, including intense bouts of anger and despair that lead her to destroy many of her own sculptures, which eventually gives her disapproving, devoutly Catholic mother the excuse she needs to have her committed to the psychiatric hospital where she would spend the rest of her life. One of Camille’s works that did survive is this bronze cast of her piece simply entitled Cat.
Final Mewsings: Cats are sometimes the only thing keeping us sane.
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