Literally all I knew about this French short silent film is that it appeared in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I would never have known about it otherwise, I hoped it would be worthwhile. Basically Madame Beudet (Germaine Dermoz) is an intelligent woman, she lives a quiet mundane life, the most exciting thing that ever happens is receiving the mail, and she is trapped in a loveless marriage. Her husband Monsieur Beudet (Alexandre Arquillière) frequently plays stupid practical jokes on her, one of the most frequent being to have an empty revolver and threatening to shoot himself. One day, while her husband is away, following an argument for refusing to join him to a night at the opera, Madame Beudet secretly places bullets into the gun, hoping that when he plays the same practical joke again he will accidentally kill himself. However Madame Beudet is filled with guilt and has a sleepless night, she tries to retrieve the gun and remove the bullets, but the next morning her husband already has the gun in his hand. Monsieur Beudet thinks the gun chambers are empty as usual, and this time he aims the gun at her and fires, the bullet misses her, he thinks she was trying to commit suicide, he embraces Madame Beudet, saying "How could I live without you?". Also starring Jean d'Yd as Monsieur Labas, Madeleine Guitty as Madame Labas and Raoul Paoli as Le Champion de Tennis. It is a somewhat forgotten film, hence not many critical reviews, it is a simple story of a woman who has become tired of her husband's foolish antics, it is considered as one of the earliest "feminist" films, it is interesting enough that it probably should be seen by more who appreciate early cinema, a watchable impressionist silent film. Good!

'La souriante Madame Beudet' narrates, with great economy and visual inventiveness, two days in the life of an early-XXth century Madame Bovary. The acting here can be related to expressionism, notably for Monsieur Beudet who recalls the freaky Doctor Caligari in more ways than one.

The sharpness of the narration, deserved by the minimal plot, allows the director to focus on the important issues - namely routine, small-town bourgeois life and dreams.

The use of objects is here both highly symbolic and narrative, as the way characters interact with them tend to define the characters and emphasize on their differences - eg.: the flower pot's position on the marble table embodies on its own the wish for either order and its counterpart the routine, or the will to escape and disrupt the way things are.

Irony is here too - and used with appropriateness to serve the plot in a somewhat cruel way. The title itself, you would have understood, is fairly ironic.

All in all, 'La souriante Madame Beudet' is an impressive, highly enjoyable poem in motion - the opening scene displaying sun shades on the sea and then the Claude Debussy score is pure magic, both cinematic impressionism and visual example of what V. Woolf called 'stream of consciousness'.

7/10

"La Souriante Madame Beudet" is another remarkable film directed by Damen Dulac, one of the most outstanding avant-garde French directors of the time and the subject of some previous reviews of her principal silent films by this German Count in his modern diary some months ago. This one is a film that has all of the characteristics of her other films insofar as their likeness of cinema innovations and the display of strong, independent and decisive female characters.

The film depicts the story of Madame Beudet, a modern frenchified woman who likes to play at the piano longhaired composers' oeuvres ( Debussy ),read novels ( Flaubert, probably… ) and modern magazines. She is married with a textile businessman. He is a rude and ordinary man who absolutely bores his wife because he has different cultural interests than her, like going to the theater to watch "Faust" ( obviously Madame Beudet as a perfect French chauvinist doesn't like that German play ).

When Monsieur Beudet is fed up with the differences between them, he makes a fake attempts to commit suicide in front of her with a revolver that is not loaded… But one day, his wife places bullets in the barrel...

The most remarkable aspect of this film it is the will that Madame Beudet displays to put an end to an unhappy marriage. She is an intelligent, cultivated person that can't stand such bored life. She rebels against marriage's conventions, affirms the right to live her own life, to claim a happy life via an inward rebellion that only has success in her dreams ( displayed in the film with trick and special effects ). So the chance to get her freedom thanks to her husband's continuous fake suicide attempts seems to be the perfect excuse for her to make her dreams come true.

But in spite of her desires and plots against her husband, at the end Madame Beudet will succumb to remorse. Even with those inner claims of independence, she accepts her particular condemnation as shown in the last sequence of the film…walking about the streets with her husband, crestfallen.

Bu in spite or thanks to such an ending, Damen Dulac achieve her inward intentions displayed in this film: the right to be a nonconformist, independent and happy human ( woman ) being.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must check if their musket is, sure enough, not loaded.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien