Princesse Marie

Jacquot and Catherine Deneuve had been searching for a project on which to collaborate for years when Deneuve found the story of Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon’s great grand-niece and Princess of Greece and Denmark, and her relationship with Sigmund Freud. Bonaparte, a model early-20th-century neurotic, pursued the radical cure of psychoanalysis in the 1920s and was so taken with not just the experience but the practice that she devoted her life to it thereafter and opened the door to psychoanalysis in France. She also played no small part in saving Freud and as much of his family as possible from the Gestapo. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else bringing so much radiance, intelligence and daring to the role as Deneuve does here, not to mention such a sense of presence. Heinz Bennent, her co-star from Le Dernier Métro, is impeccable in the role of Freud and the first sections of this film, devoted to the Princess’ analysis, are extraordinary, generating a very particular form of suspense. Jacquot handles the more predictable episodic sections just as deftly, filling them out with judiciously chosen archival images. With Anne Bennent, Heinz’ real daughter, as Anna Freud and Isild Le Besco as the Princess’s daughter. (KJ)