The Iniquity of Ms. Moreau

My latest streaming-on-Netflix obsession is Tony Richardson's 1966 film Mademoiselle. It concerns a schoolmarm, played by Jeanne Moreau, who descends on an idyllic French countryside town like Satan on Job: she starts floods, destroys bird nests and lights fires, making sure to smooth her skirt and clean her stilettos along the way. While many find the film vile, I think it is a twisted little treasure, mostly for the gorgeous widescreen noir cinematography that frames Moreau's madly repressed protagonist. It provided a good antidote to the saccharine stories that dominate our toddler-controlled telly, anyway.