La femme publique | |
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Directed by | Andrzej Żuławski |
Written by |
Dominique Garnier Andrzej Żuławski |
Starring |
Valérie Kaprisky Francis Huster Lambert Wilson Patrick Bauchau |
Music by | Alain Wisniak |
Cinematography | Sacha Vierny |
Edited by | Marie-Sophie Dubus |
Distributed by | Hachette-Fox |
Release date
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Running time
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113 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
The Public Woman (French: La femme publique) is a 1984 French drama film inspired by Dostoevsky's novel Demons and directed by Andrzej Żuławski, starring Valérie Kaprisky, Lambert Wilson and Francis Huster as the lead actors. The film had a total of 1,302,425 admissions in France where it was the 28th highest-grossing film of the year.
An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's novel Demons. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into committing a political assassination.
The film had its English-speaking debut on DVD in late 2008, when new label Mondo Vision released the film as its debut title. The disc features a commentary from Andrzej Żuławski and a video interview, where he discusses Polish cinema and the film's production. The film is also available on DVD from LCJ Editions in France, IVC in Japan, and Minerva Pictures in Italy, but lack these extras.