Die öffentliche Frau (1984)
45KDie öffentliche Frau: Directed by Andrzej Zulawski. With Francis Huster, Valérie Kaprisky, Lambert Wilson, Patrick Bauchau. An unexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Possessed’. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assasination.
“Struggling actress Ethel (Valérie Kaprisky) does private nude modeling sessions for photographer André. Famed director Lucas Kessling wants her as lead in his adaptation of Dostoyevskyu0026#39;s u0026quot;The Possessedu0026quot;. They get into a relationship and a surreal film production. He recruits dishwasher Milan Mliska (Lambert Wilson) to be her possessive disturbed husband as reality and fiction blend into this unreal journey.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is an unreal film. Kaprisky is sexually unencumbered and magnetically charismatic. She does plenty of strut-walking. She powerfully fills the screen. Lucas Kessling is an intriguing mercurial character. The surrealism is interesting at first but it gets maddeningly unreal. The wild swings and crazy 180 turns frustrated me. There is one scene in particular where Ethel faints and completely recover immediately with everybody ignoring what happened. Itu0026#39;s a cheap kind of surrealism. Itu0026#39;s almost student film level. Other parts like her nude photography is unforgettable. At some point, the weird surreal twists and turns bored me by their unhinged-nature.”
