The Film: 5/5

Though it resembles an old school Hollywood romantic drama on the surface, Jean Gremillon’s 1953 French-Italian production The Love of a Woman (Dans l’amour d’une femme) is a far more complex and truthful of the struggles a modern educated woman faces in an isolated, male-dominated island community with its own archaic ideas of what its female population should be doing with their lives. Arrow Video brings this quietly devastating feature to Blu-ray in the U.S. and U.K. as part of their Arrow Academy line.

Love stars the magical French actress Micheline Presle, a discovery of the influential German cinema legend Georg Wilhelm Pabst, as Marie Prieur, a 28-year-old doctor who has moved to the sparsely populated island of Ushant to replace the retiring Dr. Georges Morel (Robert Naly) as the community’s chief physician. Initially encountering resistance from Ushant’s devoutly religiously citizenry to the idea of a female doctor, Marie carefully wins the people of Ushant over with her more advanced methods of practicing medicine. She also falls in love with Andre (Massimo Girotti), a rakishly handsome engineer who has temporarily moved to Ushant to supervise the construction of bridges and a fog signal.

Andre wants Marie to leave the island and marry him, but he expects her to abandon her dreams of being a professional physician to be his fulltime wife. Marie is unsurprisingly torn about this decision, which forces her to choose between pursuing her dream of true love and remaining with the cause to which she has devoted her life. In a traditional American love story, Marie would undoubtedly choose a life of loving servitude at the side of the man she loves, but The Love of a Woman presents us with two flawed but sympathetic human beings who understand that such a decision could never be easy and involves much soul searching and ultimately a conclusion that much stay true to the desires of the film’s strong-willed protagonist.

Gremillon, who co-wrote the script with Rene Wheeler (Rififi) and Rene Fallet (The Last Steps), contrasts the dilemma with which Marie is forced to deal with the life choices made by her best friend on the island, Germaine Leblanc (Gaby Morlay), a teacher who forewent the chance to have a family of her own and instead devoted the best years of her existence to educating the children of Ushant. It’s a cause that Ms. Leblanc has no regrets of pursuing, though it certainly didn’t earn her much respect from a community that steadfastly believes a woman’s place is in the past. During her first days on Ushant, Marie’s direct and resolute attitude towards their antiquated ways makes her a figure of ridicule among the villagers, but it’s one of the great pleasures of the film to watch as she breaks down their sexist barriers by simply demonstrating her admirable capabilities as a doctor and surgeon.

The centerpiece of the film is Marie’s growing relationship with the charming working stiff Andre, an old-fashioned alpha male who doesn’t call Ushant his home but shares their values regarding women. As played by the late Massimo Girotti, a wonderful actor with a face appearing to have been carved out of granite who has worked with some of Italy’s finest directors (including Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, Roberto Rossellini, and Mario Bava) in a performance of unmistakable masculine sensitivity, Andre wants Marie to adhere to his ideal of the role a wife should play in a marriage, but only if she does so willingly and without regret. He really does love this woman, and yet he is not about to force her into a situation that will make her permanently unhappy. To give up your dream is to kill a piece of your soul.

It is the performance of Micheline Presle, a well-crafted masterwork of fortitude and femininity, that shines the brightest and strongest among the cast of The Love of a Woman, an exceptional fusion of French and Italian acting talent (the latter had to be dubbed into French in post-production). Without her convincing portrayal of a resilient medical professional wanting nothing more than to be judged by her educated skill and acumen under pressure, the film would completely fail. She easily dominates her every scene with grace but never at the expense of making her character overbearing and the people around her into weak-willed rubes. Marie quickly comes to love Ushant and its colorful populace even though she must put up with the community’s backwards attitudes and casual misogyny on a daily basis at first, and they all soon grow to accept her as one of their own.

Gremillon’s film also benefits from the persuasive supporting performances of Paolo Stoppa (Once Upon a Time in the West), Marc Cassot (Demoniac), and Gaby Morlay (The Life of Giuseppe Verdi) as the stalwart Ms. Leblanc. They add their own touches of humanity and natural eccentricity to the community of Ushant. The film was shot on location on the island of Ushant – with interiors filmed on stages in Boulogne, France – by cinematographer Louis Page, whose craftsmanship behind the camera extracts the spartan beauty of Ushant and immortalizes them on celluloid for all time. Additional realism can be found in the production design of Robert Clavel (Belle de Jour) and the humble costumes created by Pierre Balmain (The Reluctant Debutante). Elsa Barraine and Henri Dutilleux’s music score is a wonderment for the ears and the soul, seamlessly evolving with our heroine Marie as she embarks on the journey that will forever change her life.

Audio/Video: 4.5/5

The Love of a Woman looks absolutely sumptuous on Blu-ray thanks to Arrow’s new 1080p high-definition transfer, sourced from Gaumont’s recent digital restoration from original film elements. Picture quality is very bright and crisp and complemented by a meticulously consistent grain level and a pleasing lack of print damage for much of the film. Details are sharp and authentic, and black levels are beautiful and abundant with depth. The transfer is framed in the film’s original theatrical 1.37:1 aspect ratio. Included with the restoration is an excellent uncompressed French LPCM 1.0 mono audio track that presents a clean and audible recreation of the film’s sound mix that integrates the dialogue, music, and sparse sound effects very well and without a trace of distortion. The mix gets its best chance to shine during a nighttime storm sequence and doesn’t disappoint. Optional English subtitles have also been provided.

Extras: 3/5

The only extra included here by Arrow is “In Search of Jean Gremillon” (96 minutes), a 1969 French television documentary that offers an exhaustive overview of the filmmaker’s wonderful life and career through clips from his films and interviews with various collaborators and contemporaries including Love of a Woman star Presle and Gremillon’s fellow French cinematic great Rene Clair. Taken from a full-frame video source, this feature is presented in French with optional English subtitles. The set also includes a DVD copy containing a standard-definition presentation of the film and the supplemental documentary, a reversible cover sleeve with new art by Jennifer Dionisio on one side and the original poster art on the other, and a collector’s booklet featuring a new essay on the film written by film critic and professor Ginette Vincendeau.

Overall: 4/5

The Love of a Woman is one of the finest films made by Jean Gremillon, a true master of world cinema whose work gains greater appreciation with each year. A heartbreaking love story thankfully stripped of predictable melodrama and schmaltz and acted, directed, and photographed with beauty and honesty, Love carries with each viewing many rewards for an open-minded viewer. Arrow has come through once more with a stunning Blu-ray/DVD presentation of an exquisite foreign film classic as part of their superlative Arrow Academy imprint. Highly recommended.