SERAIL
France, 1976, 86 minutes, Colour.
Leslie Caron, Bulle Ogier, Marie- France Pisier, Corin Redgrave, Marilyn Jones.
Directed by Eduardo de Gregorio.
Serail is an unusual film, a blend of fantasy and realism. Corin Redgrave portrays a novelist who comes across a mansion in France. At his first visit, a young woman, played by Bulle Ogier, shows him around. When he returns, he finds a different woman who denies the existence of the first. She is played by Marie-France? Pisier. Leslie Carol portrays the older woman.
The novelist feels that there is the possibility for a novel in this experience. He buys the house – but the two women have different intentions for him.
The film was directed by Argentinian-born Eduardo de Gregorio who had made Celine and Julie Go Boating. He made comparatively few films but was a lecturer at the New Sorbonne in Paris.
1. The impact of the film, enjoyment, interest, meaning? To what genre did it belong? Romance, the mysterious?
2. The particular characteristics of the film as French? French sensibilities, emotions? French style? The use of colour, Panavision? The atmosphere of the interiors of the house, the exteriors and their contrast - the fields, the gardens, the airport? The importance of light and darkness. shadow? Atmosphere of reality and unreality? The atmosphere of the musical score? How important was style for communicating atmosphere and suggesting meaning?
3. How did the plot work on the level of realism? The introduction of the novelist, his comments, his observations, the audience hearing these and assessing the situation and the people with him? His search for a house, his fascination with the house, the people and their behaviour? The particular events that he experienced in chronological order? The interest level of the plot at ita level of realism?
4. How much of the film was dream or fantasy? The novelist himself and his creative imagination, the house and the way that he may it, the people and the rooms and the way that he interpreted them, the way that he responded to them with his feelings? The events as part of a dream? How well did the film work for the audience on the level of fantasy?
5. Could the audience identify well with the character of the novelist? Corin Redgrave’s appearance, background. style? An an Englishman in France? As a man of the imagination, yet commercial success, physical and sensual? His response to the house despite the difficulties of its location and the airport? His fascination with the women? The differing response to each? His curiosity about the rooms, the persons, the stories? The compulsion to search and to create a new novel? The power that the women had over him, sexuality and sensuality, his infatuation? His involvement in the plots, the stories of the past, his plans? His seeming to be in control and searching and yet his being the victim of the women? What really happened to him?
6. The two young women in terms of realism? Their background, characters, acting? What really happened? Their interaction with each other, with Celestine, with the novelist? The women in the fantasy and their various acts, to aspects of femininity? Their plotst behaviour, sexuality? Their stories? What happened to them at the end?
7. Celestine as seeming realistic and yet also mysterious? Her place in the house, the pictures of her in the past, the stories about the ownership and her place there? Her possession of the house, her hold over the two women? Her hold over the novelist? Her age, seeing her at work, her advice? How mysterious a person really was she?
8. How important was the dialogue and the discussion for exploring the themes? The strengths of the dialogue, indication of mystery about human nature?
9. The importance of the physical appearance of the house, its rooms, the sense of presence of the house and its significance? As a character in the film?
10. The reliance of the film on symbolic actions?
11. To what purpose was the film made? An exploration of sensibility, of human nature, of human relationships, people and environment?
