Pick of the Week: The Widow of St. Pierre
Length: 112 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for a scene of sexuality and brief violence
Starring Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, The Widow of St. Pierre is a haunting French-language drama directed by Patrice Leconte. This subtle, restrained film tells the tale of how the lives of a devoted married couple are profoundly affected in the aftermath of a murder. The movie is set in 1849-50 on the small island of St. Pierre, a French territory off Newfoundland. The French title of the film is La Veuve de Saint-Pierre, and it’s worth mentioning that the word veuve means both "widow" and "guillotine," and both meanings are implied in the French title.
The main character in The Widow of St. Pierre is named Pauline (Binoche), but only her husband (Auteuil) calls her that. Everyone else refers to her as Madame La. Madame La is an independent-minded woman, but she loves her husband madly. She has come to the dull, cheerless island because her husband, a career army officer, has been assigned the command of St. Pierre’s military garrison. She calls her husband Jean, but everyone else refers to him as the Captain. The Captain adores his wife and is willing to go to any length to keep her happy.
St. Pierre is normally a quiet outpost of French civilization, but its tranquillity is disturbed when a murder takes place. Two local fishermen get drunk and argue over whether one of the residents should be characterized as being big or as being fat ("gros ou gras"). One of the two holds the resident while the other, whose name is Neel (Emir Kusturica), stabs him to death.
The authorities in St. Pierre determine that Neel must be executed, which under French law must be carried out using a guillotine. However, St. Pierre has no guillotine, so arrangements must be made for the slow-moving Paris bureaucracy to have one shipped to the island. Another problem looms as well: St. Pierre has no executioner, and ships’ captains won’t carry them, believing it to be bad luck. Nevertheless, the island’s Governing Council presses ahead with the expectation that, even though it will take several months, everything can somehow be put in place to proceed with the execution.
While awaiting execution, Neel is placed in the custody of the Captain, and it is at this point that the heart of the story kicks in. Almost immediately the Captain and his wife decide that Neel will not be locked up, but instead he will assist Madame La. Under Madame La’s direction, Neel performs a number of odd jobs that benefit the locals, and along the way he even has a sexual relationship with a widow named Jeanne-Marie. Neel eventually saves the town’s only tavern from destruction, and he prevents a woman from being seriously injured or killed.
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