(1988)
4
Michael Costello
Bruno Nuytten's passionate film on the early years of sculptor Camille Claudel (Isabelle Adjani) and her stormy love affair with August Rodin (Gerard Depardieu) is a sensuous and powerful testament to the artist's need to create and the forces arrayed against her. In the 1880s, the 20-year-old artist begins a relationship with the famed sculptor, who is, at least in part, able to smooth the way for her work in the chauvinistic world of art. But at length, his ego is threatened by her creativity, and he returns to the mistress that he had never abandoned. Less about Claudel's relationship with Rodin than that with her art, the film is emphatic about her obsession with sculpture, following the artist as she paws like an animal through the mud of Paris in search of the exact type of clay she needs. She throws herself furiously into kneading and shaping the recalcitrant material, as though making love to the figures she envisions. Adjani's award-winning performance is a revelation as she abandons herself body and soul to the portrayal of this obsessive, ultimately mad woman, seemingly as enraptured in her portrayal of Claudel as Claudel was with her own consuming passion.
Camille Claudel on AllMovie
Camille Claudel (1988)
