The Worst Film Ever

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is rather a sensationalised and eroticized rendition of filmmaking loosely based on facts.Although well acted, well filmed and very intriguing throughout, it nonetheless did not treat the subject material in a way that fully depicted what countless many young women of the day endured: early sexual abuse and it's life-harming effects.One of the factual details that is notably absent from Winocour's film is the sexual assaults the young Augustine suffered at the hands of an employer with whom she was placed by her mother at age thirteen. The details of her rape do not get mentioned and neither does her trauma,or the information that the attacks began soon after.From the symptoms of her 'illness,' in this film, the causes or triggers for Augustine's episodes often feature in scenes of animal cruelty. The film does not treat her history of sexual abuse and it has Augustine enter the Salpêtrière at age nineteen, while, in fact, she was fourteen when she began her stay. Very much younger. Still a child.If the filmmaker had stuck to a factual rendition of how so many girls were sold or traded or sent off to work in situations where they were never protected, never able to protect themselves and where the theme of the day in most of Europe was early sexual abuse of horrific proportions, there may have been a film that explained how generationally women have been exploited, manhandled, marginalised and mistreated almost as point of course.A hugely wasted opportunity to make an important film.

No aspect of filmmaking is less than terrific in AUGUSTINE. The acting, props, camera work and direction are top notch. The tale intrigued me from beginning to a surprising and spectacular ending. There's a scant half dozen COMMENTS so far for this film and I won't pass judgment on the ones that take issue with the substance of the film; i.e., female hysteria, 18th century ideas of treatment and civil liberty, male domination, etc. To me such are besides the point. It is what it is - or rather, was what it was. AUGUSTINE is driven by -no, is exclusively about- two individuals trapped in their settings and stations and the human chemistry that results. AUGUSTINE is the movie that A DANGEROUS METHOD wanted to be. I was fearful that French cinema was descending into Americanized garbage. AUGUSTINE eases such fears.

This film kept my attention from start to finish. Beautiful woman, mysterious ailment, reserved doctor, 19th century setting, beautiful costumes, beautiful settings and scenery. Sensuous undertones and a dash of smoldering sexually. I must watch again, this time with my lady.I am a man of letters and my review is more than adequate. Requiring ten lines before a review may be published does a disservice to those who write reviews and those who read (or more accurately, can not) the reviews.This film kept my attention from start to finish. Beautiful woman, mysterious ailment, reserved doctor, 19th century setting, beautiful costumes, beautiful settings and scenery. Sensuous undertones and a dash of smoldering sexually. I must watch again, this time with my lady.I am a man of letters and my review is more than adequate. Requiring ten lines before a review may be published does a disservice to those who write reviews and those who read (or more accurately, can not) the reviews.This film kept my attention from start to finish. Beautiful woman, mysterious ailment, reserved doctor, 19th century setting, beautiful costumes, beautiful settings and scenery. Sensuous undertones and a dash of smoldering sexually. I must watch again, this time with my lady.I am a man of letters and my review is more than adequate. Requiring ten lines before a review may be published does a disservice to those who write reviews and those who read (or more accurately, can not) the reviews.

This is beautifully acted but of course you would expect that from the likes of Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni. It seems that the female lead, Soko, is also a pop singer in France and if so, and if she continues to act in films it's good to know that whatever their respective abilities as vocalists (and I know nothing of either) she definitely outclasses Vanessa Paradis in front of the camera. Apparently there was a real neurologist in 19th century Paris named Charcot so the chances are he also treated a patient called Augustine. I'm inclined to question, as did the other two people who have written here, the actual point of the film. As I said it's beautifully acted and well photographed but it seems to lead merely to the ultimate 'transference' between patient and doctor that's less than credible. Despite having a beautiful and desirable wife in the shape of Chiara Mastroianni, Lindon seems totally indifferent to sexual attraction and totally absorbed in his work. He is also played as a person who is himself totally lacking in charisma and/or sex appeal and not the logical object of desire by a girl who, at nineteen, is young enough to be his grand-daughter. These caveats to one side the film did hold my attention and its heart if nothing else is in the right place.