Marie-poupée (1976) is generally considered to be Joël Séria’s finest feature film. For Marie-poupée Séria re-teamed with actress Jeanne Goupil whom he had worked with on the far better known film Mais ne nous delivrez pas du mal (1971). However Marie-poupée is a far more complex film in almost every way. Marie-poupée is a provocative yet deeply moving film that must be seen to be believed.
Marie-poupée stars Jeanne Goupil as Marie a seventeen year old girl who’s emotional and psychological development was stunted many years earlier in an accident that left her an orphan. One day she happens to meet Claude (André Dussollier) who makes his fortune in restoring and selling vintage porcelain dolls. Their’s feels like a fairytale romance until Claude’s sexual proclivities become apparent. Unsatisfied in her marriage to Claude, Marie begins a kind of friendship with one of Claude’s servants on his family estate with disastrous results.
Marie-poupée plays cleverly with the nature of desire and fetishism. The extreme objectification of Marie by Claude is gradually countered by Marie’s own inevitable sexual awakening. At first her submission to Claude’s doll fetish is, from her perspective, as natural and as innocent a game to play as checkers. During this period of the narrative they are both content. It’s only when Marie asserts her own emotional and sexual desires does Claude withdraw. Suddenly Marie is unable to fulfill Claude’s sexual fantasies.
As Claude pulls away from Marie she seeks emotional refuge in the form of Sergio (Bernard Fresson). Again Marie’s childlike appearance and emotional immaturity are fetishized by a man. But Sergio’s fetish isn’t as unique as Claude’s and reflects the more common Lolita fantasy that is perpetuated in mainstream culture. Sergio exploits Marie’s emotional distress and assaults her. During the struggle Marie stabs Sergio with a nearby fire-poker and flees into the stormy night only to smack her head on a tree branch and collapse.
Séria precedes the scene of Marie’s assault with Claude’s own sequence of exploitation. This time Claude plays his “doll game” with a girl of about six. This reiterates the nature of his relationship to Marie as an act of exploitation and predatory behavior since they met. In terms of the narrative construction of Marie-poupée it is Claude’s attack of a minor that keeps him away from home so late and drives Marie to seek out Sergio.
Séria only ever sides with Marie. The ongoing dehumanizing exploitation that she experiences recalls both a Brothers Grimm fairytale and a Gothic novel. Séria reflects these influences visually with storm laden countrysides, a large manor house, scenes of animals being butchered, etc. While evoking these traditions Séria also embraces the spectacles of the sexploitation film; primarily in the form of gratuitous nudity. This synthesis locates parallels between all three aesthetic practices and pinpoints the mechanisms by which women are systematically preyed upon in our society.
Marie-poupée isn’t so disturbing at first, but by the time it has reached its shockingly “fantastique” conclusion one can’t help but feel somewhat diminished. So many films deal with men falling in love with objects whose form resembles that of a woman or find some kind of whimsy in an object becoming a flesh and blood woman to live as an object of sexual fulfillment. Marie-poupée does the opposite. This film delves into the darker place where heteronormative male fantasies are born and examines them from the perspective of their favored victim.
