A Gentle Woman

Programmed by Nick Newman

Fyodor Dostoevsky's peerless psychological depth is married to Robert Bresson's often-imitated, never-surpassed style in Une femme douce, a photo negative of the domestic drama that casts courtship, commitment, and mourning as surreal memories. Working in color for the first time, the great French director Robert Bresson moves the setting from 19th century St. Petersburg to modern-day Paris, with Dominique Sanda (Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini, The Conformist) in the titular role. Une femme douce remains a rare object—like discovering fresh territory for a director so endlessly excavated—that, seen with Nazar, upends possibilities of cinematic narrative.