The film “Maria” by Jessica Palud is being screened this week in Saint-Chély-d’Apcher, Mende and Marvejols.
The least we can say is that Maria comes out at just the right time: in the middle of the #MeToo era, when women’s voices are finally being freed, that of Maria Schneider, symbol of the victims of male domination, scandalously stifled in her heyday, finally reaches us through this painful and angry film.
From rising star to depressed drug addict
Director Jessica Palud manages to put the exact emotion into those few minutes when Schneider’s life changed, the famous sodomy scene of Last Tango in Parisby Bertolucci, about the turning point in her life, from rising star to depressed drug addict.
Accurately and modestly reconstructing the era of the 70s, helped by remarkable actors (there is the seed of a star in this Anamaria Vartolomei), practicing very pertinent little writing acrobatics, Palud puts himself at the service of this cursed actress and tries to do her justice, pointing out the omerta of the world of cinema, the victimization of women, male domination and the hold that filmmakers had over their creatures.
An important film
She succeeds without any problem, in the first half of the film at least (the other half is a little more conventional), and makes a film with a raised fist, a true flag against violence against women, which will remain a milestone in the history of the liberation of speech.
All this without overdoing it, without fanfare, with a sense of nuance that does it credit. A film that may not be formally brilliant, but important in its substance and intentions.
