The Midwife (Sage Femme) was shown at the 2017 Berlinale out of competition. The film provokes many questions and the most important one is why this trashy opus of Martin Provost was selected for the program of the festival. Perhaps the answer is the participation of the great French cinema legend Catherine Deneuve.
Catherine Frot plays the main part in the film, the boring midwife Claire Breton, Deneuve plays her friend Béatrice Sobolevski. We can only feel sorry for Deneuve who agreed for a role in such a forgettable picture which has mediocre camera-work, terrible lighting, uninteresting dialogue and a complete lack of an artistic vision. What is even sadder is that many critics are calling this her best role in years! The film is itself a symbol of banality which dominates cinematography today.
Although the picture pretends to be a dramatic-comedy, the audience at the press screening never laughed. The jokes were not funny, the characters paper thin. Provost has a reputation of being a director who is an expert on women's psychology but this film proves that his esteem is hugely overrated. The film which is about a midwife features multiple childbirth scenes filmed in a real hospital however these scenes only show the superficial side of the process and leave a disgusting aftertaste.
Read more at: http://indie-cinema.com/2017/02/the-midwife/
Catherine Frot plays the main part in the film, the boring midwife Claire Breton, Deneuve plays her friend Béatrice Sobolevski. We can only feel sorry for Deneuve who agreed for a role in such a forgettable picture which has mediocre camera-work, terrible lighting, uninteresting dialogue and a complete lack of an artistic vision. What is even sadder is that many critics are calling this her best role in years! The film is itself a symbol of banality which dominates cinematography today.
Although the picture pretends to be a dramatic-comedy, the audience at the press screening never laughed. The jokes were not funny, the characters paper thin. Provost has a reputation of being a director who is an expert on women's psychology but this film proves that his esteem is hugely overrated. The film which is about a midwife features multiple childbirth scenes filmed in a real hospital however these scenes only show the superficial side of the process and leave a disgusting aftertaste.
Read more at: http://indie-cinema.com/2017/02/the-midwife/