The title may mislead you,for " fille publique" generally means "prostitute" ,but ,in the context of the movie, it makes sense for the heroine ,Yasmine, is a "child in the social authority care ", or she will become one towards the end of the film, thus eligible for adoption.
Time has changed since Maurice Pialat' s harrowing "l'enfance nue" (1968); Yasmine stayed in her foster family since she was abandoned when she was three months old;although her adoptive parents show her affection and treat her like their own daughter (they have children of their own) ,she's a tortured soul ,she longs for a family ,she wants to be legally adopted ;the prologue ends with screams :"mommy !mommy !
Mommy!
This is the autobiography of one of the most extraordinary French directors , a woman who always takes the movies off the beaten tracks (even when she gets lost in her bizarre praise of hunting -"le corps sauvage"- or of a return to monarchy -le fils d'un roi- ) and who produces,writes and directs all her movies:I would go as far as to write that she's perhaps the most important contemporary French metteur en scène.
Miss Carron has her own language : not only the sign language she uses when she talks to her little mute foster brother ; but gestures speak louder than words : when she leaves her brother ( a legitimate son of her foster parents ),he refuses to kiss her goodbye,but,thinking twice, he runs for the car and embraces her ; in the hospital where she brings flowers to her foster mom, she sees her breast-feeding her new baby born :she rushes for the door and throws the bouquet on the ground .
In spite of her family's affection, before she's eligible for adoption ,she desesperately tries to be part of a family :hence her desire to be christened which dies on the vine - religion will be a permanent feature of the movies to come ,which the final sentence from St Mark confirms .She even tries to join the "légion étrangère,a family of sorts, but "they do not enlist women" -she would devote several films to the military world .
There's another aspect which must not be overlooked; it's her foster daddy who made her a movie buff ;he had lots of video cassettes and they spent many evenings watching classics; the cast and credits which appear on the TV screen is without a doubt these of Clouzot's "le corbeau " :they also mention "les diaboliques" afterwards .With another girl ,she goes to see Lang's "Metropolis "without knowing it's one the masterpieces of the silent age ....
She takes a rebel stand against the society ,but at the same time,she wants to be part of it ; she drastically turns her back on her true mother who ,however ,got a raw deal too and had certainly extenuating circumstances (the character is too underwritten,that's the main flaw of "la fille publique" )
This ambiguity may explain why her later works may seem progressive or reactionary . Cheyenne (rebel) Carron ( longing for respectability ) is a woman of contradictions .....like all of us..
