Isabelle Huppert loses her mind beautifully in this forgotten masterpiece about art born from suffering.
Aloise creates a series of haunting drawings while she is incarcerated in an institution for the insane in turn-of-the-century Switzerland. She endures torments as a musically gifted girl and later as a young woman; her developing madness and the barbaric treatments of the time are shown.
Acting
Delphine Seyrig's silent, magnetic presence as the institutionalized artist.
Cinematography
Drawings come alive through stunning visual integration.
Direction
De Kermadec's rare female gaze on historical trauma.
Director
Liliane de Kermadec
Isabelle Huppert
Aloïse (jeune)
Delphine Seyrig
Aloïse (adulte)
Marc Eyraud
le père d'Aloïse
Michael Lonsdale
le médecin
Monique Lejeune
Élise adulte
Julien Guiomar
Le directeur du théâtre
Roger Blin
Le professeur de chant
Jacques Debary
L'ancien directeur
Roland Dubillard
Le professeur
Jacques Weber
L'ingénieur
Hans Verner
Le chapelain
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
One of the few 1970s films directed by a woman about a historical female artist, virtually unknown outside France despite winning a special jury prize at Cannes.
The actual Aloïse Corbaz's drawings are held at the Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne; the film recreates them with painstaking accuracy.
FR
