[CRITICAL] THE TAULARDE

For his fourth feature film, Audrey Estrougo addresses, again with THE TAULARDE, a social subject strong it stresses the malfunctions. After the cities, the rape and the undocumented, it is up to the prison world of women that this film director committed attack. A topic little treated in the screen (in contrast to the male universe) which it depicts with a realism scary. Surprising, this film is as much by its subject as by the actress who interprets his heroine: Sophie Marceau against the employment in the role of a woman who finds herself in prison out of love, defending a cause in which she believes hard as iron. The result is credible and definitely serves this film that proves to be as useful as interesting.

THE TAULARDE plunges us without frills in the heart of a women’s prison. Audrey Estrougo not tons, and tries modestly to enter us in this universe as it is, and that she knows well (for having extensively worked with inmates). What she wants to do out of this film – and it does – it is both the social and cultural diversity that exists within the population of women in custody, the way in which these women live the confinement and lack of privacy. In contrast with the recurrent images of the prisons of men, virile and brutal. Unhealthy shocking prisons, and the harshness of the laws that exist are not forgotten and can come up with something so realistic that it sometimes has the unpleasant feeling of being locked up with the women of this prison.

In fact, through the story of Mathilde Leroy (Sophie Marceau), the way she will discover the prison, the other inmates, the conditions of life and the consequences of the act that led him to this place, the director raises real images on a word finally almost hackneyed or overused : the prison. Looking at THE TAULARDE this is no longer an idea, it is a reality, this is what awaits those who commit crimes and offences by love, by need, by instinct of survival, by madness, or to behave like the men of the city of which they are envious of the power, more or less conscious. It is the diversity of stories and women who inhabit this prison, which is touching, because they are precisely not so far from each of us. Because he is not that young girls born in the wrong place. The character of Mathilde is interesting in this regard because it is a professor of letters who acted in full consciousness, conviction, convinced that his motives will help to support the award and that the risk is properly managed. This is because it embodies a character that approximates the image that one has of it, and not a woman of the city, that Sophie Marceau is credible in this role she wears so impressive.

“Looking at The Taularde, the prison is no longer an idea, it is a reality : this is what awaits those who commit crimes and offences by love, by need, by instinct of survival, by madness, or to behave like the men of the city of which they are envious of the power.”

Thus it is that’Audrey Estrougo evokes skillfully the empathy of the viewer. It requires our humanity so that we will guard as much as possible to judge or condemn these women. To such A degree that we end up wanting to defend them, to get out of this hell, that we suffer to see them get to be naked (literally and figuratively) in this small space, dirty and hostile. It even comes to forget that they have all voluntarily committed the act that has projected here, that at any given time they have made the wrong choice, but they had the choice…

We also note that the men are physically absent but psychologically present in the mind and the course of all these women. The only one that appears, it is Benjamin Siksou (Adrien Leroy, the son of Mathilde Leroy). A role sincerely poignant that helps to balance the one of Mathilde in order that it not be a glorious and praiseworthy heroine. It is in this position of mother which is enduring the unacceptable to his son that it was eventually hard not to judge it, to the extent that it results in its fall, and the guilty instead of protecting (as much as one of the scenes of parlors is particularly difficult).

In the midst of this, closed to the sordid, a few moments of respite, however. A few moments a little comforting that the result of friendship or solidarity that can be created between some of the detainees : protect each other, discuss, reassure, understand, and laugh sometimes…but it remains residual : no rest in mind that the ferocity of the microcosm.

With THE TAULARDE, Audrey Estrougo we offer a range of female portraits, singular, which does not leave insensitive (remarkably played by actresses of choice, such as Suzanne Clément, Carole Franck, Anne Le Ny, etc…). This includes all those held in the stories and personalities are so different but also the guardians of a prison, they also somewhere locked inside but by lack of choice this time. We understand that they are trying to support this business so difficult, each in their own way, they are unjust and self-concious, maternantes or courageous. The neat end helps to make a film of quality and marking. When the side is clearly a deterrent, it would be him alone that the film is released, if necessary, in sensitive locations where one would be tempted to conceal the risks posed by certain acts are increasingly common.

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