Venice Film Festival: À bras le corps Review

Directed by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo

À bras le corps, starring Lila Gueneau

Set in a small rural border village in Switzerland during the Nazi occupation of Europe in the 1940s, À bras le corps tells the story of Emma, an aspiring nurse and favorite of the virtue committee who becomes pregnant after being raped by a self-proclaimed journalist. He refuses to take responsibility, so she is rescued by her admirer who marries her and accepts to be the child's father, but Emma does not love him and eventually leaves to join her mother in the city.

A narrative of obligations and emancipation, with the young, not-yet-adult woman choosing to rebel against the rules of her village, refusing a life of endurance to embrace the unknown and take control of her own life.

Lila Gueneau delivers a genuine performance, capable of conveying the character's submission to the rules of the time and place, while also interpreting her strength to rebel. Emma's journey begins from the shock of domination, a game that started with a kiss and transformed into something unwanted. With À bras le corps, the direction seems to express a tribute to the strength of those women who found the courage to rebel against social conditioning to affirm themselves.

The direction skillfully guides the protagonist through her transformation, a realization entirely contained in the final scene where Emma finally rediscovers the joy of living.

À bras le corps is immersed in its era, against the backdrop of war, between moral doubts and social conditioning, and presents a detailed historical fresco of the rural condition of the 1940s.