The film revolves around a (sort of) doomed love affair between Agnès (Elina Labourdetti) a former prostitute (dancer) and Jean (Paul Bernard) a businessman who is unaware of her past. The affair is set up by a scheming woman named Hélène (Maria Casarès) who seeks revenge by setting up Jean to fall in love with Agnès without him being aware of her sordid past.

With painstaking orchestration Hélène does fine work. At first she gains the trust of Agnès and her mother by helping them out of the cabaret/prostitution business by moving them to a place she owns and providing them with food and shelter. But even though Agnès and her mother know that Hélène controls their fate they know that she is their only hope.

What they don't know is that for all her seeming goodness Hélène is using them for her little plan. Once Jean meets Agnès he falls in love quite easily but Hélène strings him along until his only recourse is to offer his hand in marriage.

At the heart of Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is the theme of gaining redemption through suffering – something Bresson would go to again and again in his later films. But the film - written by Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast) – also has a fiercely romantic poignancy that is absent from other Bresson films.

Like other Bresson films this one has a quite ascetic feel to it. The actors don't show much emotion and this gives the film a distancing effect that makes it difficult to feel the pain of the characters.

To be honest the film deals with a subject that many of us would shrug off today. But it is worth noting that the film is based in an 18th century novelette by Denis Diderot.

Audio:
Presented in Dolby Digital Mono the audio is okay. There are some noise nicks and scratches but this is fairly accurate even for the time. Many films of the 1930's and 40's didn't have super clean sound like we do today. The volume levels are good.

Video:
The film was shot by Philippe Agostini and the 1.33:1 image has a soft focus, grainy look to it. Criterion has done a very good job (as is expected) and even though the print shows its age (many scratches fly by) there is a luminous quality to the image which gives the DVD a film-like look. Personally, I really enjoy watching the grainy dance of each shot. Many of us have become so spoiled by the clean look of DVD's that we have forgotten that the look of film is and should look like film, which means it should have some noticeable blemishes and grain. Criterion understand this and that is one of the things that sets them apart from other DVD companies.

Extras:
There are a few posters and behind-the-scenes footage on the DVD. The inside cover has two essays about the film by Francois Truffaut and David Thompson.

Overall:
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is a poignant film about upper-class Parisian maneuverings that pits one woman's nasty attempt at revenge and another woman's search for redemption. It is a must see for any Robert Bresson fan. For all others it is a good introduction to Bresson and - even though the story may take a while to get into - as an artifact of French cinema in the 1940's it is worth a look. The look of the disc is very good (or more importantly – accurate) and the sound is okay.