Story of Jen & Lady Chatterley

Hi everyone :) I watched a great film last night called 'Story of Jen'. It's a French Canadian production and the dialogue is half English half French. I only carried my studies in French to AS level, and the only upload of it that i could find didn't have any subtitles (couldn't find anywere to buy it other than French Amazon). It took me a while to get round to actually watching this film. Whilst i really wanted to see it, i didn't know how i would cope with the language. I suppose my experience of this film was a bit limited. I wasn't able to understand the relationship between Jen and her Mother very well, as they spoke entirely in French to each other. Nor could i understand Jen's narration which continued throughout the film. Nevertheless, the rest of the film was spoken in English and i thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm so glad that i got round to watching it. I would really recommend it, even if you speak no French at all. It's really beautiful.

 Here's a good summary/blurb from the Seattle International Film Fesitval website:

Jen (Laurence Leboeuf), a quiet, solitary 16-year-old, lives with her mother Sarah (Marina Hands, Lady Chatterley) in a small town in rural Quebec. She feels alienated from her classmates at school because she doesn’t drink or wear make-up, and also from her mother, Sarah, who projects her regrets about her own life onto Jen. After her father’s suicide, Jen’s taciturn uncle (her father’s half-brother, Ian) comes to stay with them. Estranged from the rest of her father’s family, Jen is drawn to Ian, first as a father figure and gradually as an object of desire. When the local gossip reaches Sarah and she realizes the nature of Ian and Jen’s relationship, her worst fears for her daughter seem to be coming true. She tells Ian to leave, but not before events have been set in motion that will change their lives forever. 

I don't remember this being in the film, but i couldn't find another good quality pic of Jen (Laurence LeBouf) and Ian (Tony Ward) together

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I also wanted to mention the French film 'Lady Chatterley' aswell in the post. I caught this last year on Film4, and besides finding it a great film in itself, it was this that led me to discovering Story of Jen, as Marina Hands stars in both. She seems a good actress, only a big feature of her acting seems to be this heavy breathing that she puts on for both parts, although more frequently in Lady Chatterley. I found it quite amusing. Anyway - according to Wikipedia, 'Lady Chatterley' is an adaptation of 'John Thomas and Lady Jane' by DH Lawrence, which is an alternative version of the infamous 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. I found it a really refreshing film to watch.

Here's an extract from a review by the New York times. Click here to read the full review.

“Lady Chatterley”, a nearly three-hour French-language adaptation, directed by Pascale Ferran and opening on Friday, is both sober and sensual, not just a world away from the high-toned smut of its predecessors but also, in its directness and simplicity, an anomaly in the elaborately ornamented genre of the costume drama. In France it has won widespread critical acclaim and five César Awards. 

Ms. Ferran’s film is based not on the definitive “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” which Lawrence published himself in Italy in 1928, but on an earlier version of the novel. He wrote it three times in two years, while suffering from the tuberculosis that killed him in 1930. All three versions concern the intense affair between a frustrated young aristocrat and her virile gamekeeper, but the second “Chatterley,” the one Ms. Ferran has adapted, is not as polemical as the third. The class differences between the lovers are more pronounced, but the lovers themselves are less inclined to subject their relationship to anguished analysis. 

Lots of love

Lucy

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