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Features: DVD, Widescreen, English, Subtitled
A successful publisher is acutely aware of and deeply pleased with his high social standing, fine taste, and abundant material possessions, among which he seems to include his wife, Gabrielle. But in a single afternoon, everything that he believes he knows about his marriage and his life falls apart.
"A haunting and riveting work..." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
"...beautifully articulated staging and setting..." Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
"The film is a wonder and a joy to watch on any number of levels." Rick Kisonak, Film Threat
Editor's Note
Patrice Chereau's adaptation of Joseph Conrad's novella THE RETURN is a gripping chamber piece in which a bourgeois man's stable, comfortable life is unexpectedly shattered. The time is turn-of-the-century France. Jean (an utterly brilliant Pascal Greggory) and his wife Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert) are a well-to-do couple who spend much of their time throwing lavish dinner parties. But one day, Jean discovers a letter left behind by Gabrielle, in which she confesses to Jean that she has been sleeping with another man and is leaving him for good. Devastated beyond belief, Jean is understandably shocked again when Gabrielle returns home just a few hours later. Jean's pride mixes with jealousy, anger, and bitterness, sending him into a maniacal tirade that seems only to amuse the detached Gabrielle. As the night unfolds, the once happy couple begins to realize just how different they actually are, sparking a final confrontation that will decide their fate once and for all. Masterfully crafted by Chereau (INTIMACY, QUEEN MARGOT) and featuring stunning cinematography by Eric Gautier, GABRIELLE is an excruciatingly intimate account of a crumbling marriage.
| Features | Audio: French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Deleted Scenes With Patrice Chereau Audio Commentary | | Interactive Menus | | Interviews With Patrice Chereau, Isabelle Huppert, & Pascal Greggory | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | Gabrielle By: Chris Cabin - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 12/15/2006 2:20 AM | |
With fangs still dripping dark blood, Gabrielle comes to us like Neil LaBute rewriting Henrik Ibsen's classic A Doll's House. Don't let that get you too excited: The film is also very slow, psychological, and just slightly experimental in its score and use of text as language. In fact, there's little mystery why the film was held for nearly nine months since its premiere at last years New York Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: IFC |
| Release Date: 12/19/2006 |
| Running Time: 90 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2005 | | Catalog ID: 79719 | | UPC: 00796019797191 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: French | | Available Audio Tracks: French | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (2005) | | | Venice Film Festival, Patrice Chereau, Golden Lion Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | Entertainment Weekly
"Greggory anchors GABRIELLE in manly bewilderment and rage, while Huppert claws the title character's way to self-awareness." -- Grade: B 07/21/2006 p.49New York Times
"[A] film of eccentric beauty and wild feeling....Together with his extraordinary performers, Mr. Chereau breathes life into characters who long ago set a course for death." 07/14/2006 p.E10 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "It's highly stylised...and Huppert and Greggory give powerfully contrasting performances." 12/01/2006 p.39 Sight and Sound
"Beautifully filmed by Eric Gautier....A demonstration of how a creative interpretation of a written source can inspire great cinema." 12/01/2006 p.42-3 Los Angeles Times 10 of 10
"Gabrielle" may well be director Patrice Chereau's finest film, a period chamber drama drawn from a Joseph Conrad short story and of such intensity and passion that it transcends a specificity of time and place to achieve timelessness and universality...Isabelle Huppert and Pascal Greggory are superb as a couple of immense wealth and social prestige in the Belle Epoque Paris of 1912 - but then everything about this film is superb...Amid its fireworks and melancholy, "Gabrielle" offers a jolting vision of a disintegrating relationship that seems consistently fresh and unexpected in its revelations. - Kevin Thomas
San Francisco Chronicle 8 of 10
Isabelle Huppert is at it again, torturing men, in "Gabrielle," a meticulously directed film by Patrice Chereau. Based on "The Return," a short story by Joseph Conrad, it's a chamber piece about the implosion of a marriage, with echoes of Ingmar Bergman...Greggory is up to that journey, revealing the character in his various colors, and Huppert is at her usual best, subtle, emotionally full, focused and honest. The film contains one classic Huppert moment: She sits silently, as her husband lectures her, and when he finally comes to his conclusion -- "I forgive you" -- she bursts into hysterical laughter. - Mick LaSalle
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