This movie made me feel righteous, and young again, as if I were in high school. It made me remember how much fun romantic love and theatre were when I first encountered them there. But then I remembered being warned by teachers about how love and theatre should be serious undertakings, because they were essentially dangerous. Even in my literature class, sexual morality was emphasized. Whenever a heroine was involved in passionate sex, two things seemed to happen. First, her lover left her. Second, she killed herself. Tolstoi's Anna Karenina, Flaubert's Madame Emma Bovary, Shakespeare's Juliet and Zola's Therese Racquin all killed themselves. But perhaps because of my stagecrew teacher, on the other hand, who joked a lot -- and was fond of Wagnerian music (don't ask me why) -- I was familiar with Brunhilde, who also killed herself. Her reason was religious, though. The other ladies couldn't bear living in social disgrace, but Brunhilde wanted Odin (her spiritual father) and the people who worshipped him to know that dying in love was as honorable as dying in battle. Patrice Leconte uses Brunhilde as a dramatic model in this movie, "The Hairdresser's Husband." Like the supernaturally powerful warrior Brunhilde, Leconte's hairdresser (Mathilde) wields a knife. "The point was sharp and true, a fearsome cutting blade," Wagner said. Mathilde kills herself differently than Wagner's Brunhilde did, but the meaning is the same. Mathilda throws herself into a surging river from a bridge, but surely this is meant to be symbolic because there is a bridge in France called "Brunhilde's bridge." Moralists will be completely confused by this movie, and selfish people will resent it. I loved it, and hope you do too.
Mary Cadney, Oklahoma City
Mary Cadney, Oklahoma City