In La femme qui pleure Jacques Doillon plays the male lead, called Jacques. The French film magazine Positif was of the opinion (in a review initialled F.A.) that this ‘impudence’ by Doillon did not reflect a negative attitude, but a refusal to be hypocritical. But also: ‘En étant, à l’écran, son personnage même, Jacques Doillon fait acte de masochisme’. All the other characters also happen to have the same first name as the actor who plays the role. According to Marcel Martin (Ekran 76) this indicates a very personal motive of the film-maker. He notes in this regard that Doillon’s little daughter Lola (a toddler at the time the film was made) also plays a role in the film. Doillon himself says that there was a financial reason to play himself in his own surroundings.The film focuses on Dominique Laffin as well as Doillon. Dominique is the ‘woman who cries’, Jacques’ wife who has a female lover Haydée (played by Haydée Politoff). Alain Bergala (Cahiers du Cinéma) even wrote that the whole film revolves around Dominique’s body, through her immobility she is the master of the game: ‘C’est d’avoir réussi á montrer l’inertie, l’entêtements de ce corps a être là, à la foi têtu, opaque et maître du jeu’.The film is made with simple static camera angles and moments in which the picture fades to black to separate the different scenes. The sombre style works as a ‘dédramatisation’ (Martin) of sensitive everyday drama. The simplicity and small scale of the production make it possible to improvise, which was important to Doillon because in this way he was able to avoid literary dialogue.
