La Souriante Madame Beudet - 1923

Country: France

Director: Germaine Dulac

Writers: Denys Amiel (play), Germaine Dulac (screenplay), André Obey (play), André Obey (screenplay)

Stars: Germaine Dermoz, Alexandre Arquillière and Jean d'Yd

Release Date: 9 November 1923 (France)

Also known as: Das Lächeln der Madame Beudet (Germany), Madame Beudets sonniges Lächeln (Germany), The Smiling Madame Beudet (International - English title), Usmiechnieta pani Beudet (Poland)

Production Co: Colisée Films

Runtime: 54 min  | USA: 26 min  | 38 min

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White

Plot Keywords: Based On Play | Character Name In Title

Genres: Short | Drama

One of the first feminist movies, The Smiling Madame Beudet is the story of an intelligent woman trapped in a loveless marriage. Her husband is used to playing a stupid practical joke in which he puts an empty revolver to his head and threatens to shoot himself. One day, while the husband is away, she puts bullets in the revolver. However, she is stricken with remorse and tries to retrieve the bullets the next morning. Her husband gets to the revolver first only this time he points the revolver at her. 

Trivia

Included among the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', edited by Steven Jay Schneider.  

La Glace à Trois Faces - 1927

Country: France

Director: Jean Epstein

Writers: Jean Epstein (adaptation), Paul Morand (novel)

Stars: Jeanne Helbling, Suzy Pierson and Olga Day

Also known as: Der dreiflügelige Spiegel (Germany), El espejo de las tres caras (Spain), Lustro o trzech twarzach (Poland), The Three-Sided Mirror (International - English title)

Filming Locations: L'Isle-Adam, Val-d'Oise, France, Paris, France

Production Co: Films Jean Epstein

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White

Plot Keywords: Love Affair | Sports Car | Based On Short Story | Flashback | Nonlinear Timeline  | Bird | Avant Garde | Car Accident | Based On Novel

Genres: Drama

Psychological narrative avantgarde film about a wealthy young businessman who consecutively falls in love with a classy English woman (Pearl), a Russian sculptress (Athalia), and a naive working-class girl (Lucie). Overpowered by weakness, the coward sidesteps the obligations that love affairs impose: rather than living up to his dates he takes his sports-car from an ultra-modern garage and speeds to the fashionable beaches of Deauville. On his way, he is fatally hit by a descending swallow. The film is divided into three segments each of which consists of events the woman experienced. These sequences are embedded in scenes in which each of the three women is telling and casting her mind back to her own love affair. Thus, present, future and past merge and cannot be distinguished clearly. The intertwinement of several layers of time experience, recollection, telling and showing have been..