"The Most Murdered Woman in the World": this is the very mysterious and sordid nickname of Paula Maxa, actress who died more than 10,000 times on the stage of the famous Parisian theater of the 30s, the Grand-Guignol. Making a film was a very ambitious idea, which Franck Ribière manages to realize at times, but without ever really convincing. A fascinating story poorly exploited, from which we detach ourselves far too easily.
The starting plot of The Most Murdered Woman in the World is not far from reality: in the heart of Paris, in one of the infamous districts of the capital, a theater shakes the neighborhood. The Grand-Guignol is at the stage of what horror films are for us in the cinema: a cathartic spectacle full of bloody effects and morbid illusions, staging the worst vices and the most atrocious murders. Franck Ribière's feature film takes place with great ease, and places the key characters of the theater: Paula Maxa (Anna Mouglalis, actress with a magnetic voice), the famous actress killed more than 10,000 times on stage, André de Lorde (Michel Fau), the quasi-tyrannical director of Grand-Guignol, or Jean (Niels Schneider), the journalist of the Petit Journal, cross and confront each other in a scenario unfortunately too confused and that leaves us hungry.
The subject leaves us dreaming: the meticulously realized staging of the Grand-Guignol shows transports us magnetically to the 30s, with a rather well conducted production. Cinema and theatre confront each other with a beautiful accuracy, which unfortunately deserved a better development. And this is where the problem lies: under a fascinating subject develops a scenario far too complex and confused, where all the plots overlap and follow each other in a logic far too obscure. The blurred scenario that mixes Paula Maxa's past, the future of the theater or the adventures of Jean, quickly loses us until we end up in crazy situations, where each thread of the plot gets tangled with the others. The thriller, the personal and the universal intersect to give very strange moments, where everything resurfaces at an unexpected moment.
But the strength of The Most Murdered Woman in the World lies in the staging of the world of illusions and reality, the nuances and mixtures between imagination and reality. The images of Paula and the theater are distorted in an ever darker dreamlike torpor, unfortunately once again too little exploited. The director of photography Laurent Barès composes and breaks down his plans into real living paintings, such as this photograph in the mirror that comes to life, this memory lost in tragedy. If the whole film is very dark, the light remains controlled from start to finish, and offers us beautiful moments of respite, between two bloody acts.
The direction of the actors can, meanwhile, be quite confusing: with a very written text, the actors are closer to the actors, and if they are fundamentally attached to the world of theater, they sometimes have a hard time convincing in a cinematographic world. The Most Murdered Woman in the World also suffers from many sound mixing defects, and the original music, very good at first, ends up tiring by repeating itself.
Under beautiful intentions and a well-conducted direction, The Most Murdered Woman in the World suffers from some flaws, which unfortunately make us too often leave the plot and this universe yet so fascinating. A film to discover now on Netflix!
