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Isild Le Besco - Again

Daniel G. Lebryk | 01/01/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"A Song of Innocence is a period piece. Isild Le Besco, a peasant mother that was forced to give up her baby, is hired as a wet nurse. The family tries very hard to keep up appearances that all is well and rich in their house.

This is a half way decent film, although it drags on a bit long. Angèle-Marie, played by Isild Le Besco, is quiet, obedient, and acts like a servant through the first half of the film. Once she develops a relationship with Charlotte, the smiles and humor come out. In effect, not much happens in this film, Angèle-Marie arrives, nurses the baby for some time, and then she leaves. The movie tries to deal with jealousy, love, and loss. Sadly the themes are presented and dealt with in an obvious manner.

After watching four other films with Isild Le Besco, I am now convinced that French directors are in love with this actress's body. About every 15 or 20 minutes there are close ups of her breast feeding the baby, getting ready to breast feed the baby, or some other stage of undress. She is alluring, but the stories all seem to be a pretext to just have her remove her clothes. She is certainly not a very good actress, but does look wonderful without clothes. In many ways, she is the French version of Scarlett Johansson, gorgeous but can't act, although Scarlett tends to keep her clothes on.

The film plods along at a very slow deliberate editing pace. It is shot in muted colors and almost exclusively inside a very large house. Sound is well recorded. Camera work is rock steady with no handheld shaky camera. The supporting cast is fairly cardboard, especially the husband. Charolotte has some spunk, and does stand out in the film.

The hour and a half film is not rated. There is no strong language, or violence. In Europe, this would be an all audience's film. However, in the US there are just too many scenes of Isild's exposed breasts to escape an R rating. There is nothing sexual about any of these scenes, so a mature younger viewer would have no problems with the film.

The film is presented in French with English subtitles that can be turned off. The translation is generally good.

Not a great film. It's not an annoying period piece. Isild is perfectly pretty. It does move slowly and has no plot twists or surprises."