Augustine

Augustine is the title character in this French costume drama from first time feature director Alice Winocour.  The film stars Vincent Lindon (Welcome, Mademoiselle Chambon) as Jean-Martin Charcot, the controversial 19th century pioneer in the field of neurology, and Soko (a 27 year-old pop singer making an stunning début as an actress) as a young kitchen maid suffering from intense seizures. When Augustine is packed off to Charcot’s all-female hospital she quickly becomes the star patient in his research on hysteria. The film, based on real characters and events, is thoroughly absorbing and distressingly titillating, especially in its sexually charged examination scenes.

There is a gothic Brontë-ness to this story of an innocent girl’s journey into self-discovery via her relationship with an older, colder, worldly man, that is beautifully offset by the film’s contemporary perspective on sexual politics.  The doctor/patient relationship at the heart of this movie is more intriguing than in other recent films on this subject, like David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, because it leaves so much unsaid. Rather than spell out what is going on or contextualize everything with historical references, Winocour allows us to experience what her two lead characters are feeling in each moment of each scene; this is rare for a based-on-real-events period piece.

Soko is a radiant screen presence and she and Winocour are able to make Augustine all the more enticing after her various post-seizure disfigurements, which accentuates the creepy eroticism at the heart of the picture. Lindon has the less showy role, but he is the key to making the picture work--it’s through his inner torment that we identify with Charcot. There are many ways to view this man’s motivations and interpret his work. The film allows us to draw our own conclusions about him, but we are given ample food for thought despite the minimal dialogue.  The movie is well balanced with each character’s desires clearly represented and expressed, but very little discussed or explained.