A Woman's Revenge

This version of the famous story from “Les diaboliques” by Barbey d’Aurevilly (1874) features beautiful classical music, costumes and theatrical conventions which result in pure cinema. A rich, decadent man of the world meets an exceptional lady of the streets.
The 19th-century dandy-writer Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly was specialised in short stories about monarchist aristocracy who had lost their power but not their money and who of course surrendered to morally irresponsible behaviour. Recently, Catherine Breillat also based the film “Une vieille maîtresse” on the work of Barbey d’Aurevilly, and “A Woman’s Revenge” has already been filmed in 1921 by Robert Wiene.
Several stories from the anthology “Les diaboliques”, which was immediately confiscated in 1874, have the structure of a story in a story – also this one. Rita Azevedo Gomes sticks fairly close to the original text in a solemn, theatrical yet also picturesquely beautiful style reminiscent of De Oliveira or Eugène Green. Roberto is a handsome, wealthy man of the world. He is arrogant and easily bored. Yet one evening his attention is attracted by a prostitute who turns out to be a missing noblewoman. She tells her story: a marriage without passion, an affair, a shocking murder and ultimate revenge. —IFFR