THE STORY OF ADELE H. Movie Review
L'Histoire d'Adele H.
François Truffaut called his 1975 film The Story of Adele H. “a musical composition for a solo instrument,” though it's impossible to discern whether that instrument is the character (Victor Hugo's daughter Adele) or the actress who plays her (Isabelle Adjani). In the final analysis it doesn't matter, because the seamless perfection of Truffaut's masterpiece extends to every aspect of this transporting film, from the dark, terrifyingly beautiful images of cinematographer Nestor Almendros to the tight, brilliant screenplay (surprisingly, the result of a collaboration by four writers), to the overwhelmingly potent score by Maurice Jaubert, whose death 35 years earlier didn't stop Truffaut from reworking his music so triumphantly. (Jaubert wrote the score for Jean Vigo's supremely romantic L'Atalante.) The story, which begins in Halifax in 1863, is simple enough on the surface: Adele Hugo has fallen in love with a young lieutenant (Bruce Robinson) and decides to recapture his love by whatever means necessary. She keeps a journal (as she did in life—it's the basis for the screenplay) and as her obsession deepens into a bottomless madness, the burning passion that pours out of Adele is eventually not even directed at the lieutenant—who becomes a kind of erotic “McGuffin”—but becomes an overwhelming and all-encompassing end in itself. At least one critic has called Adele's final delusional moments “triumphant,” and she's right. I would extend that word to describe every aspect of The Story of Adele H., and at the same time I hope that in the near future a restored version—approximating Almendros's original color scheme—will replace the visually muddy, unsatisfactory video version currently in release.
NEXT STOP … Vertigo, The Searchers, The Green Room, Breaking the Waves
1975 (PG) 97m/C FR Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, Sylvia Marriott; D: Francois Truffaut; W: Suzanne Schiffman, Jean Gruault; C: Nestor Almendros; M: Maurice Jaubert. National Board of Review Awards ‘75: Best Actress (Adjani); New York Film Critics Awards ‘75: Best Actress (Adjani), Best Screenplay; National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘75: Best Actress (Adjani); Nominations: Academy Awards ‘75: Best Actress (Adjani). VHS, LV MGM, FCT