Film review: ‘Augustine’ faces some female trouble

Newcomer Soko stars in French film about 19th-century female hysteria

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  • Courtesy Music Box Films
  • WOMAN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN: French singer Soko stars in Alice Winocour’s debut film Augustine.



The part of Augustine in French director Alice Winocour’s debut film Augustine requires a talented, intuitive, subtle actress to fill the role, and the French singer Soko - perhaps best known for her hit single “I’ll Kill Her” which was sampled by Cee Lo Green on his Stray Bullets mixtape - certainly fills the bill. It’s a clever bit of casting: Soko brings a tough, modern edge and a bit of quiet, sublimated anger to the role of a helpless young servant girl in Belle Epoque Paris suffering from hysterical fits, suddenly finding herself at the mercy of a coldly scientific and objectifying medical establishment. More specifically, she’s treated by the real historical figure of Jean-Martin Charcot (Vincent Lindon), best known as a predecessor and influencer of William James and Sigmund Freud in the field of modern psychology. Lindon’s Charcot is a complicated figure, equal parts showman and healer: he’s a principled scientific seeker but also an opportunist, a tortured self-doubter but also something of a charlatan, protector of Augustine and also her exploiter.