Radley Metzger’s 1968 movie Therese and Isabelle is …well, it’s a relic of both its time and place; the kind artist softcore that filled arthouse movie theaters, the kind of movie that passed for “European,” without being at all original in content or artistic, but also manages to not be bad enough to be amusing. Of all the old movies I have ever referenced here, Therese and Isabelle is one that I am constantly surprised I haven’t yet reviewed. If you have interest in mid-20th century movies about lesbian relationships, this is available on the Internet Archive, so now would be a good time to watch it.
As an adult, Therese visits her old school, College du Lys (this is me grinning broadly), a boarding school for girls. While touring the grounds, she looks back on her experiences there, and how she and another student, Isabelle, fell in love.
The plot is just about as predictable and trite as imaginable. Therese’s mother had remarried, so the girl is half abandoned at this new, strange place. She and Isabelle become friends, then something more. Sublimating her growing desire for Isabel, Therese loses her virginity to a “suave” guy who clearly does all the young girls at the school and who today would be considered a predatory creep, but to the men who made this movie, is merely an inevitability.
Therese and Isabelle eventually admit their feelings and consummate the relationship, almost immediately after which Isabelle disappears from the school, transferred Therese is told. The final words of the movie are “I never saw Isabelle again.” As little as we know about Isabelle, we know nothing more about Therese. She arrives, she experiences nostalgia, she leaves. Who she is, where she comes from, we’ll never know. Therese is an awkward, unhappy girl, but we’ll never really know what she becomes as an adult.
The straight sex scene is not explicit, but you know what is happening. The lesbian sex is given more time, more languid nudity, and voiceover to explain what Therese is feeling, in very symbolic language. We’re left with no doubt that her physical relationship with Isabelle was far more fulfilling than with Marcel or Claude or Jean-Pierre or whatever his name was. The cinematography isn’t even all that bad, and as a black and white film, I find myself seeing scenes surprising clearly for what is pretty obscured lighting in some cases. The only downside is that tiresome artifact of 30 year olds playing 15 year olds.
This movie tidily fits into so many of our Yuri tropes – even so far as the school name – to feel very comfortable and ever so slightly boring. It’s a slow movie and very of its time. It ticks off no new boxes for us now, but when looked at in the scale of 1968, I’m sure it was super progressive and artsy. In fact, when you take a look at Nakamura Asumiko’s upcoming A White Rose in Bloom, keep this movie in mind.
Ratings:
Cinematography – 8
Story – A
Characters – 8
Service – Yes. Some nudity, sexual situations
LGBTQ – Nope. One person snarkily suggests that the two are “awfully close” than there are giggles. That’s it.
Yuri – 9
Overall – 7
Ultimately Therese and Isabel is a short memoir story masquerading as a 2-hour movie. “Story A” is timeless because it’s so thin and superficial. I can totally see a reboot of this being made, doing everything exactly the same with no changes getting praised even now.
