O Amor de Uma Mulher

Significant within the history of French film though director Jean Gremillon, no doubt is, this his final feature, before he died a few days later barely holds the attention of the viewer today. Most interesting for me is the Brittany location for the setting and location for much of the film, Ile d'Ouessant, Finistere, a bleak far North Western outreach of France that I seem to recall reference to in those old shipping forecasts. Micheline Presle plays a doctor transferred to look after the isolated community and represents the 'modern woman'. Hard to fully appreciate but apparently, at the time the film was made, women in France had only had the vote for some ten years or so and so her treatment and the attitude of the young Italian guy perhaps more understandable in the circumstances. Today, however, the story is slight and of little relevance or interest and although some of the scenes are well shot much is rather mundane and offering none of the wonderful imagery of some of the director's earlier works.