Camille Claudel

Paris, the end of the nineteenth century. Camille Claudel makes sculpture and is the only person who takes it seriously. Women cannot enter the academy and a studio is hard to find. Auguste Rodin sees her work and takes her into his workshop. She becomes first student, then assistant, then lover. Rodin has lived with a woman for years and will not leave her. Camille wants to make work under her own name; what she makes is seen as under Rodin's influence. The separation is long and destructive. Bruno Nuytten directs. Isabelle Adjani plays Camille and Gérard Depardieu plays Rodin. Adjani also produced the film and the project stayed alive for a long time through her effort. She won the César for the part, the film won an award in Berlin, and it was nominated in the foreign film category at the Oscars. The life behind the narrative is real: Camille Claudel was committed to an asylum by her family and stayed there for thirty years; she never came out. Its strongest sections are in the studio; the work of clay, stone and hand is shown in detail. The matter it works at is not talent going unrecognised but on whom recognition depends. Its limit is length; the narrative runs near three hours and the last section moves heavily. Who it is for: viewers who like biographies of artists and Adjani's acting. Who it is not for: it is long, the register is dark, and the last section is hard to watch.