La femme publique aka The Public Woman (1984) French Fever Dream Noir

Director Andrzej Żuławski (Possession, On the Silver Globe). 

Written by Dominique Garnier & Andrzej Żuławski, and based on Dominique Garnier's novel. The beautiful Cinematography was by Sacha Vierny (Last Year at Marienbad, Belle du Jour, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her lover), and Music by Alain Wisniak.

The film stars Valérie Kaprisky (Mouvements du désir, Year Of The Jellyfish) as Ethel, Francis Huster as Lucas Kessling, Lambert Wilson as Milan Mliska, Patrick Bauchau as Ethel's father, Gisèle Pascal as Gertrude, Roger Dumas as André, the Photographer, Diane Delor as Elena Mliska, Jean-Paul Farré as Pierre. 

Valérie Kaprisky as Ethel

Francis Huster as Lucas Kessling

Lambert Wilson as Milan Mliska,

Story

Paris around the Avenue de Flandre and Barbè in the 19th arrondissement, and in the old slum areas between the Riquet and Crimée metro stations. It's the same general area that was featured in 1946's Noir Les portes de la nuit's aerial opening sequence. Avenue de Flandre was a two way avenue in 1946 and has since been widened to include a central promenade and lined with modern buildings.

A young, beautiful, brunette haired woman, Ethel, strides briskly, with purpose, down a run down street. Ripe for urban renewal. Her hair streams in the breeze.

Some building have boarded up windows, a trash fire burns on a sidewalk. She's wearing a short grey jacket over a pale clingy split "tunique" dress with pastel leggings and calf-high dark brown boots. Ethel crosses diagonally across the street towards a hole in the wall restaurant called le Gourrava. 

Inside we see a waitress and a man, Milan Mliska, flirting. At first the waitress is petting a dog. Milan tells her that the dog's been following him all day. He puts a cube of sugar in his mouth playfully and the waitress is attempting to grab it from him with her teeth. 

When the waitress retrieves the cube the man goes back to writing. Ethel watches, then turns away. 

The waitress comes out by the entrance and asks Ethel what she wants? Ethel gives her a note and tells her to give it to the man with the dog. When the waitress opens the paper, she is surprised that is has money, she remarks, that it must be his lucky day with all the money he owes. 

The waitress gives Milan the note with the money, Milan jumps up and heads towards the sidewalk looking for Ethel. 

Now, that the guy has money, the owner demands to be paid and they get into a fight, with a third man jumping in and it ends with Milan getting thrown through the window and out onto the sidewalk. 

We make a quick cut back to an anguished looking Ethel, on a flat patio strewn with clotheslines, she screams 

Ethel: I was working on a balcony in the fresh air, when I saw walking under the trees nearby... 

We cut again here to an interview in an office where a seated Ethel is repeating to a casting director the same lines. Ethel is an aspiring actress.

Ethel: I was working on a balcony in the fresh air, when I saw walking under the trees nearby... 

We cut again here to an interview in an office where a seated Ethel is repeating to a casting director the same lines. Ethel is an aspiring actress.

Get used to it this is apparently director Andrzej Żuławski's style. He cuts between multiple storylines and chronologies of different characters, erratically. 

This is a casting interview for a film being directed by Lucas Kessling, who is half French and half Czech. Lucas likes what he sees and brushes her as he walks by her. She saying her lines. 

The casters seated at a table, do the rest of Emily's interview, but it seems to not go well with her CV and she doesn't have any head shots. Emily is dismissed, and teary eyed, she is shown out of the interview. 

However Lucas is infatuated and stops her on the way out, walks with Ethel and tells her that he wants her to play Nicola in his movie of Dostoevsky’s The Possessed.  

Place Vendôme

(From here on, I've added asterisks * to indicate cuts where we have a possible breaks in time).

*

We cut to Ethel on a stairway looking at a pile of movie magazines as she flips through them some covers have Lucas Kessling's image. 

Whilst we are watching this, a V.O, on TV News, is reporting that a Lithuanian priest has been let out of Siberian prison and has arrived in Rome, and is on his way to Paris before going back to the Soviet Union and his parishioners. 

Its her TV that's on as she arrives at her apartment. Under her door she finds a message. 

We cut to Ethel running through a large indoor gallery. she's on her way to her appointment. Her destination is "Studio d'Art." Sounds classy, no?

We cut to Ethel running through a large indoor gallery. she's on her way to her appointment. Her destination is "Studio d'Art." Sounds classy, no?

We find out that it's a Nudie Photo joint, run by a dyke named Gertrude. She rents photography studio space for do it yourself art nude photography. She also has a stable of girls. Ethel is a popular model, and one of her regulars, a Mr. André, has arrived early for his shoot with Ethel. 

Ethel and Mr. André

Gertrude gives them studio one. Ethel walks right in followed by André carrying an aluminum case that contains his camera gear.  

While André sets up his lighting and opens up his camera case, Ethel undresses at a tall stand and lays each article of clothing over it and slips her boots beneath it. 

Stepping nonchalantly out of her panties she walks naked to stand in front of a background screen. She is poised like an athlete. 

André starts some music playing and the session with Ethel begins. She wildly gyrates to the music.

Ethel Shoot with André 

When done, Ethel methodically dresses and leaves the studio. Gertrude gives her her percentage while André slips out the door. 

Once André splits Gertrude asks Ethel, what does she do to her clients and Ethel replies "I scare them." 

Gertrude then comes around her desk and stands beside Ethel, She reaches out her hand and squeezes Ethel's breast, and then she moves her hand to between Ethel's legs. All the while Ethel acquiesces. We fade to black. We are left wondering if this was part of Ethels job description, no?

Back out in the street Ethel passes into a urban renewed Paris neighborhood.

A woman opens a door in an apartment and Ethel enters. Its Ethels mother. Ethel's home for a surprise visit. Her mother is happy to see her, but she was expecting her yesterday she mentions. 

Ethel lies and tells her that she was modeling for Prisunic. Her mother asks "and" Ethel tells her nothing yet. (Prisunic was a French variety store chain that closed in 2003 BTW).

Her mother then asks how "he" is? Ethel replies Fine, fine. (at this point we have no idea who he is unless its Milan the guy she passed money to earlier. Her mother mentions that there's no point being a model if you starve. 

We meet Ethels stepfather and its during this visit we find out that her mother is very sick. Later Ethel and her mother are laying on a bed both are crying. 

They are both cursing her real father but at this point we do not know why. Her mother has some type of violent reaction and wants to die. 

*

We cut to Ethel leaving an apartment stumbling unsteadily and taking an elevator down to a parking garage. Is she tired, drunk...?

As she steps out from the elevator into the parking area an a man runs up to her telling her to hold the elevator. 

It's Milan. She gets back in the elevator and Milan begins to fondle her breasts with the newspaper he's holding.

She lets him and then when he moves the paper down to between her legs, she turns and leans against the wall thrusts out her ass and tells him if keeps doing it she will feel pain. Milan grabs her ass. Ethel and the man kiss and apparently begin to get it on.

*

Cut to Ethel walking down a shop lined street. At a corner she runs by chance into director Lucas Kessling, and a redhead, Lucas stops and asks Ethel what is she doing here Ethel points out that she lives just over there. Lucas asks Ethel her name and turns away. Ethel is again teary eyed. 

Ethel makes her way to her apartment house. Soon Lucas is running after Ethel.

Lucas catches her on the stairway. He tells her he wants her to read for the film, hands her the script, and we cut to a script read.

At this point Director Andrzej Żuławski's adds in the production of the period costume drama "The Possessed" into the mix.

So we not only got a film within a film, with actors in period costumes, and actors not in costume but still in character, but also non linear personal relationship stories between Lucas, Ethel. and Milan. Milan who BTW, is a Czech exile and revolutionary. We also have Ethel dealing with a dying mother, an estranged father, her career as a nude model. Its a sensory overload and you can probably with multiple viewings figure out the actual chronological order of events.

Noirsville 

Zulwaski tells his tale in a real fever dream fashion, using frenzied camera work, with acting performances bordering seemingly almost on the psychotic. Francis Huster and Lambert Wilson are very convincing, but Valérie Kaprisky really shines, going all out in an extremely challenging role. Bravo!  8/10  

culturopoing

?The viewer follows the tribulations of Ethel (Valérie Kaprisky)—an inexperienced actress who earns her living posing nude—whose life is turned upside down when she meets the enigmatic director Lucas Kesling (Francis Huster). As tyrannical as he is fascinating, Kesling offers her a role in his upcoming adaptation of Dostoevsky’s *The Possessed*, then becomes her lover. As their intimate and professional relationship turns stormy, the young woman begins to lose her footing, finding her life, her work, her love life, and a mysterious political conspiracy becoming inextricably intertwined…

A cathartic trip—heightened by the frenzied intensity of Francis Huster and the sheer magnetism of Lambert Wilson and Valérie Kaprisky (both of whom earned César Award nominations)—the film stands as a pinnacle of directorial mastery within Żuławski’s oeuvre. It seamlessly blends a coming-of-age narrative with a psychological landscape and intense sensory stimuli—love, violence, nudity, screaming, and aesthetic shocks; nothing is spared us, yet we crave more. It incorporates personal messages—an entire subplot pays homage to Pope John Paul II, serving solely to salute his unwavering commitment to Poland—and stands as an unequivocal declaration of love for cinema as a medium of total artistic expression."

AlloCiné

"The film set becomes the stage for Ethel’s deconstruction; the young actress loses her footing, caught between the role she embodies and her own existence, all within a hysterical mise-en-scène typical of Żuławski’s style"