| La Femme de nulle part | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Louis Delluc |
| Starring | Ève Francis Roger Karl |
| Music by | Jean Wiener |
| Release date |
|
| Running time | 61 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
La Femme de nulle part (The Woman from Nowhere) is a 1922 French film directed by Louis Delluc. The screenplay was one of three screenplays published under the title Drames du Cinema in 1923.
Plot
In a villa close to Genoa, a man says goodbye to his wife and young son. He is going to spend one day and one night in the city to take leave of a friend embarking on a boat. An older woman arrives, who had lived many years before in that house. She asks for permission to see again the house and the park. The husband invites her to spend the night. While he is upstairs packing, a young man hides a letter under the staircase leading to the house.
Once the husband has left, his wife retrieves the letter, it is a message from her lover insisting that she should leave her house and elope with him. The older woman watches her from the window of her bedroom while she reads the letter. A moment later, she goes to the young woman's bedroom and sees that she is packing. She tells her that she has lived a similar story many years before but that she shouldn't leave because of her child.
During the evening, the older woman wanders in the park, reminiscing about her past love. The young woman meets her lover who tells her he will be waiting for her in his car the following morning and begs her to come with him. In Genoa, the husband wanders aimlessly in the city and ends up in a bar where a woman tries to seduce him but he rejects the temptation.
In the morning, the older woman has changed her mind, she urges the young woman to follow the call of love and convinces her. But the nurse tells the little boy that his mother is leaving. He runs after her and fall on the ground, calling his mother. She cannot resist her son's cries and goes back to the house, just when her husband is coming back. She asks her husband to protect her. The older woman bids them farewell and walks away sadly on the road, realising she is alone in the world.
Cast
- Ève Francis: the unknown woman
- Gine Avril: a young woman
- Roger Karl: the husband
- André Daven: a young man
- Michel Duran: a young man
- Noémie Scize: a nurse
Reception
With hindsight the film has been considered an "early masterpiece of impressionist cinema".
References
- "Pierre Etaix - Revisiting a Forgotten Master". brightlightsfilm.com. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
Wiener had first composed film music for the feature La Femme de nulle part (The Woman from Nowhere, 1922), written and directed by Louis Delluc.
- "La Femme De Nulle Part". movies.msn.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
- Louis Delluc (1923). Drames du Cinema. Paris: Editions du monde nouveau. p. 130.
- Review, synopsis and link to watch the film: "A cinema history". Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- "Louis Delluc – La femme de nulle part (1922)". worldscinema.org. Retrieved 24 March 2014.