François Ozon’s crime story about two fraudster friends, an actress and a lawyer.
Paris in the 1930s. Young actress Madeleine Verdier is accused of killing a producer who tried to rape her. Her best friend, the young lawyer Pauline Mauléon, agrees to defend her. They turn the court into a theater, where the accused gives her triumphant and carefully prepared monologue about the lack of equality and freedom for women wishing to make a career and live no worse than the men around them. The court takes Madeleine’s side, her career is launched, and she becomes increasingly famous until the truth of the murder comes out.
The Crime Is Mine is a criminal vaudeville in which the comic form and playful dialogues conceal a complex ethical dilemma regarding means of achieving freedom and justice. Madeleine and Pauline live in poverty and do not have the opportunities or resources of their male counterparts. Their fate is to play by society’s rules and be content with less or think up smart moves in order to find their place in the sun. Sisterhood and solidarity come first in their relationship, in opposition to the cliched view of female friendship as the territory of rivalry.
Historical distance, elements of black comedy, and the deliberately theatrical style soften the brutality of the tools of their struggle—deception and murder. This is similar to one of Ozon’s early films, 8 Women, a detective musical in which women fight for power in 1950s France. Like Madeleine and Pauline, these eight women use traditional male tools for achieving power: force, weapons, and brutality.
The film will be shown in French with Russian subtitles.
The Crime Is Mine
Director François Ozon
France, 2023. 102 min.
18+
