a film about the condition of prisoners’ wives

The film “The Prisoner of Bordeaux” directed by Patricia Mazuy, brings together Isabelle Huppert and Hafsia Herzi. A success that is released in theaters on Wednesday.

Alma (Isabelle Huppert), a depressed bourgeois woman, is bored in her large, beautiful house. EShe visits her husband in prison almost every day. He is a renowned surgeon and jailed for fatally mowing down pedestrians while drunk with his car. The sad wife meets another visitor, Mina (Hafsia Herzi): odd jobs, two children, courage and a big mouth on his shoulder. Alma will offer to help him and then to put him up.

An unlikely friendship between two characters who seem to be complete opposites, the risk of caricature or déjà vu was high, but Patricia Mazuy works wonders, knowing that she was exploring clichés there: “The lonely bourgeois woman had to be made special and unique. Perched above the emptiness of her life, she is in opulence and absolute solitude, and in fact Mina will catalyze an awareness in her. It’s a film about their mutual emancipation, let’s say.” The title of the film is to be taken as a wink, these two women are not in prison. Their husbands are, but they are both in some way prisoners of their social condition and other assignments.

LThe film’s great strength is obviously this formidable duo of actresses: Isabelle Huppert, funny and touching, has probably not been so good on screen since She by Paul Verhoevenand. Hafsia Herzi, with her charisma and interiority, remains at the level of excellence already seen in Borgo Or The rapture.

“Isabelle Huppert and Hafsia Herzi are both opposites of each other, including in their way of playing. Connecting that created surprise and life.”

Patricia Mazuy

to francinfo

Fresh, poetic, avoiding clichés and even playing with them, not very tender with men, non-existent or harmful, The prisoner of Bordeaux, noticed at the Cannes Film Festival, is one of the best French films of this year.