La femme publique

He is ice cold, he's the vice, the cynicism, the intelligence personified, and…

«Possession» made me quite interested in the films of Andrzej Żuławski. After «The Important Thing Is To Love», I have watched «The Public Woman», which I would try to analyze into this review.

An aspiring young actor Ethel, who got part-time job as a nude model, gets the part of Liza Tushina into the adaptation of The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The film director Lucas Kessling, who also play Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin, takes a professional and sexual interest in Ethel. The director is not satisfied with Ethel’s acting and he tries to make her acting better. Concurrently, into the real world, happens some strange things: the savage murder of Czech actress, the acquaintance of Ethel with Milan – half-mad friend of Lucas.  

Most critics say The Public Woman is the self-irony of Andrzej Żuławski. Nevertheless, he said in an interview, that this film could not be regarded as «the distorted auto-portrait». I think that The Public Woman firstly should be regarded as a loose adaptation of the Possessed. That is why; I recommend reading or rereading the book before watching this film.

…one would have thought that he must be a paragon of beauty, yet at the same time there seemed something repellent about him

Lucas Kessling is the ultimate Nikolay Stavrogin both at the film set and in the real world. His character is the evil genius, the manipulative person, the soul molester. Lucas plays a direct or indirect part into the all subplots and has almost absolute dominance over Fedka the Convict – Milan Mliska. Francis Huster has portrayed the real Stavrogin – a diabolically smart and charismatic man, - and it is a pity that actor has not received any awards.

I always fancied that you would take me to some place where there was a huge wicked spider…

Ethel is Lisa Tushina, first at the set, then more and more in the real life. She’s merely a toy in a hands of Lucas. You could even say, that all strange events were merely set up by Lucas in order to get her acting better. Valérie Kaprisky cannot «fly on the high-octane fuel», as Isabelle Adjani and Romy Schneider, but, along with those great actors, she played on the edge of her possibilities.

Alas, the poor woman was so anxious to be deceived again!

Andrzej Żuławski plays a mind game with the spectator. Behind the façade of erotic film with euro-pop soundtrack, the director mixes different genres: a film within film, a political thriller, a avant-garde cinema, drama and etc. You should not forget that in the Universe of Andrzej Żuławski the genres and other standard cinematic attributes loses their traditional meaning.

The Public Woman is a loose adaptation, which is much better, interesting and polyhedral, than the conventional Andrzej Waida film.  All those who love art-house, and especially Andrzej Żuławski fans, should immediately watch this masterpiece.