Astragal

2015 [FRENCH]

Drama / Romance

2
IMDb Rating 5.8/10 10 327 327

Director

Brigitte Sy Photo
Brigitte Sy

Top cast

Yann Gael Photo
Yann Gael as Etienne Danseur
Louis Garrel Photo
Louis Garrel as Photographe
Céline Groussard Photo
Céline Groussard as Cliente café Pigalle
Billie Blain Photo
Billie Blain as Coco
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
881.97 MB
1280*536
French 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
24 fps
1 hr 36 min
Seeds 2
1.77 GB
1920*804
French 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
24 fps
1 hr 36 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by dbdumonteil

Albertine got a raw deal.

This is the second version of Albertine Sarrazin's best seller ,almost half a century after Guy Casaril's effort starring Marlène Jobert and Horst Buchholz;generally French first versions are filmed in black and white and their remake in color;oddly ,it's the other way about as far as l'Astragale is concerned .An improvement over the first version? Yes and no.Guy Casaril's bad reputation went against him and tarnished his "L'Astragale " which was however hailed by the critics in 1969 and a big success which put Marlène Jobert on the map.Brigitte Sy's version has a superb black and white cinematography ,at once poetic (looking on the side of the thirties Réalisme Poétique) and realist (a more modern treatment ,no dramatization,restrained performances);the same goes for the script: lines are ,in turn, Parisian slang ,or very mannered sentences ,with well -chosen vocabulary ,which makes sense ,for Sarrazin had her "Baccalaureat" (high school diploma,which was not usual at the time,mainly for a girl):there was a gap between her and her uneducated circle .As far as acting is concerned , Leïla Behkti does not make you forget Marlène Jobert ;Reta Kateb is miscast as Julien .Their love story - which was to end tragically in 1967 when Albertine died because of negligence in a hospital- does not convince.Both versions forget one vital point:Sarrazin's background ,which looks like a melodrama;a voice over tells us about the judge's verdict ,and a small flashback and that's it.Sarrazin's defiant attitude,against the bourgeois society (her adoptive father was a M.O.),against sexual repression (she dared to kiss a girl on the mouth in prison),the first woman who told her prostitution years ,all this is passed over in silence in Casaril's and Sy' s efforts.To follow the book like a dog (=to begin with Albertine's escape from jail and her meeting with Julien) is not enough when you deal with a character with a racy past.Unlike Casaril's ,Sy's film went unnoticed ;Sarrazin's book was no longer widely talked about like in the rebellious times of the late sixties .The writer's readers can have a look ,it is not a bad movie,but the others may find it a little old -fashioned .
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