"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
Acting
Feuillère's Julie: cool, cruel, devastatingly magnetic.
Direction
Audry frames desire through doorways, mirrors, glances.
Cinematography
Shadowy interiors where every candle flickers with tension.
Director
Jacqueline Audry
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on Dorothy Bussy's semi-autobiographical novel, this was remarkably frank for 1951—released the same year as stricter Hollywood censorship.
Director Jacqueline Audry was among few women working in French cinema; her gaze on female desire is notably unsensationalized, almost documentary in its intimacy.
FR
