Camille Claudel 1915 | (2013)

Director: Bruno Dumont
Category: Heavy fumes
Topics: loneliness, madness

The film depicts Camille Claudel (1864 – 1943), a French sculptor, awaiting for her brother’s visit at a psychiatric hospital in Montdevergues (Vaucluse). Camille Claudel (Juliette Binoche) was committed to a mental assalym at her family request, as the end of relationship with her teacher and lover Auguste Rodin affected her mental health.

She has panic attacks and she is afraid of being poisoned, she might as well have some light paranoia, but overall she is quite ok. Surrounded by everyone’s complete madness, screaming and howling, Camille sits in the garden watching the 5-meter-tall stone walls and just hopes that all this nonsense is going to end soon. She waits for her dear brother Paul to come and let her go back to her quiet little studio.

Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist, diplomat and devouted Catholic

And the brother comes, but not to release her. Even though the doctor says that despite some problems, it’s a high time to finally let Camille live together with her family, Paul is against it. He still can not forgive the abortion she did, and Camille spends the remaining 28 years of her life in Montdevergues. Paul visits her every so often, he might have also been slightly mad.