Description

In Camille Claudel 1915, Academy Award-winning Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) gives one of her "most wrenching performances" (The New York Times) as the protege and mistress of Auguste Rodin, during the time when she was imprisoned in an insane asylum. Camille was also the sister of the Christian mystic poet Paul Claudel, the last of her family to pay her regular visits. Inspired by the correspondence between Paul and Camille, writer/director Bruno Dumont (Humanite) focuses on Camille's struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy in a crowd of schizophrenics. Suffering from bouts of paranoia (she believes Rodin is poisoning her), she focuses on her art and her family as pillars of sanity, until those too begin to crumble. Dumont shot the film in a real asylum with a supporting cast of actual patients and their nurses, highlighting the thin line between the insane and those who treat them. With a stunning performance from Binoche, Camille Claudel 1915 "works beautifully" (Time Out NY).