Becky Blab

I have been meaning to write a post on this movie for a while, and I’ve decided to try to do a regular Film Friday feature. It’s called Le Beau Mariage–not sure if it’s at all based on a play called Un Beau Mariage but I don’t think so. Somewhat randomly, it was playing in a French Film Festival here (which consisted of only three films). Here’s the synopsis from imdb.com:

Sabine vows to give up married lovers, and is determined to find a good husband. Her best friend Clarisse introduces her to her cousin Edmond, a busy lawyer from Paris. Sabine pursues Edmond, with the encouragement of Clarisse, but Edmond does not seem very interested.

This film is really a throwback to old ideas of mariage and traditional gender roles. Sabine, though pursuing a Master’s in Art History, is convinced that being a housewife is a better use of her creative gifts and would allow her to dedicate herself more fully to them. In a striking conversation with an ex-boyfriend, whose current wife is a full-time teacher she says something like the following: Look at how messy your house is, it’s as if you are living like bachelors; Can you really say that teaching a group of screaming kids is empowering?; I want a husband to take care of me, so that I can take care of the house and do more creative things than just have a silly job. While she may have a point, given that two-income households are the rule for reasons of economic necessity, how can we push beyond traditional gender roles and arrive at a place that is fulfilling to both parties involved?

I found this commentary in French:

Conte éthique et social cruel. Constamment, le mariage est envisagé comme un désir d’élévation spirituel (s’accomplir) alors qu’il n’est qu’une solution pour s’élever socialement.

Les contrastes sociaux entre Clarisse et Sabine transparaissent à chaque scène. Pour Clarisse, réception mondaine, habits et atelier bourgeois ; pour Sabine, appartement parisien miteux, pauvre affiche de Man Ray, train et 4L, réception et costume minable, ancien amoureux pantouflard.

Rohmer pourrait vouloir nous dire d’apprendre à se considérer globalement (amis, habitation, langage) sans croire à d’autres changement que ceux provoqués par la grâce, absente ici.

Paraphased: It’s a cruel ethical and social tale, that envisions marriage as a desire for sprirtual evolution even though it’s only a solution for rising in social status. It goes on to compare the social standing of the Sabine and her married friend Clarisse, whose husband is a wealthy doctor.

Below is an interview with the male lead.

Plus d’infos sur ce film

It is important that it was filmed in the 80s, because I think this would have been a time of looking back at the changes brought by the 60s youth movements (in France the year of 1968 was particularly tumultuous). That’s not to say that we have stopped looking back, nor that feminism specifically has ceased to have relevance. Indeed, it is the constant need to re-evaluate the ‘progress’ we have made regarding women’s status that keeps feminism going. But there’s always the issue of the great backlash:

There has always been resistance to feminism - the backlash that Susan Faludi chronicled in her 1991 book of the same name. But there is also the satisfaction of arguments won, rights enshrined, respect ensured, the sense that the central feminist project - the fight for women to be treated as human beings, no more, no less - is inching along. In fact, reading a recent piece by US feminist writer, Katha Pollitt, headlined Backlash Spectacular and charting the ways in which North American culture is regressing on women’s rights, I felt smug. Thank God that’s not happening here, I thought, sinking into my seat and reaching for another chocolate.

Of course, if you’re feeling smug, you’ve got it wrong. In the weeks after Pollitt’s article, I found myself tripping over signs, left and right, that not only does the feminist movement still have far to go, but that arguments we thought were long-won have been re-opened, rights we thought were settled are suddenly under threat. These signs came in a whole variety of forms, some ridiculous, some devastating.