THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT
A fairground phenomenon, a monster among monsters (legless man, Siamese sisters, elephant man) who were the heyday of fairgrounds for a century, the bearded woman did not escape the cinema, which gave her a few variations. The most famous remains the one delivered by Annie Girardot in the feature film by Marco Ferreri (1928-1997), The Bearded Lady’s Husband. This noir film, with fierce and provocative humor, was released in 1964, shortly after its presentation in competition at the Cannes Film Festival where it received a very poor reception, judged “abject” by some critics. To the point that the ending, censored by producer Carlo Ponti, had three different versions, including Ferreri’s.
Nothing like that lurks Rosaliethe second feature film by Stéphanie Di Giusto (The dancer, 2016) which, unlike the Italian filmmaker, erases all forms of cruelty and savagery in favor of a half-tone painting, with rounded corners, inside which the bearded woman takes on the features of a a contemporary heroine, determined to display and have her strangeness accepted. The approach could appear laudable if this modernity of the character, assumed by the director, did not come up against the academicism of the sets, costumes and staging, thus creating a somewhat anachronistic and embarrassing discordance.
The effect produced tends to make the statement demonstrative and the subject artificial. Which, however, is inspired by the most illustrious – and proudest – known bearded woman, Clémentine Delait, born in the Vosges in 1865 where she died in 1939. Not without having lived to the fullest, traveled a lot and claimed the wearing of masculine outfits . Married, owner of two cafes where customers flocked to see her, the young woman suffering from hirsutism stopped shaving at the age of 36, even deciding to pose as she was, for postcards. intended for sale.
Hairy body
Stéphanie Di Giusto’s film is set in 1870, and her character, Rosalie (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), is hardly far from her model except for her silhouette – finer and more petite – and the gentleness which permeates her gestures. and her phrasing, as well as the place where she is about to live. Or a small Breton village subject to the power of a rich owner (Benjamin Biolay), whose factory employs almost all of the inhabitants. It is here that the young woman (clean-shaven, prettily dressed, flowers carefully stuck in her blonde hair) comes to meet, for the first time, the future husband to whom she is promised, Abel (Benoît Magimel), a good a bit of a boorish guy and heavily in debt since the customers deserted his café. Interested to the greatest extent by the young woman’s dowry, and no less seduced by her radiant beauty, he marries her immediately.
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