This is a very serious drama about the life of a sculptress who eventually went mad. I think it's rather interesting that Isabelle Adjani was chosen for the role, as a decade earlier she played the obsessed daughter of Victor Hugo (who also was eventually institutionalized). BOTH characters were based on real women, both lived around the same time period, both were French, both suffered the same fate and both completely lost contact with reality and their personalities disintegrated in the end.

In the case of this movie, Camille suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia (with signs of Disorganized Schizophrenia as well),as her problems in life all are the "result of August Rodin and people that work for him to help him destroy her career". While it is obvious from the movie that Rodin was a slug and mistreated her because he was a narcissistic, beyond sleeping with her and casting her aside, there was no plot by him to ruin her career. But, unfortunately Camille created an involved delusion that this was so--blaming her failures on him and not the fact that she was erratic and acted "crazy" (living in filth, having the entire first floor of her home flooded and doing nothing about it, etc.). I liked how Adjani handled this but I was especially impressed by the makeup people who made her look very haggard and old--she looked the part.

This is NOT a "feel good movie" by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is well-made and compelling and well worth seeing and a good study of mental illness.

NOTE TO PARENTS--the film has quite a bit of nudity. While it is NOT gratuitous at all (after all, sculpting often requires nude models),this film would probably be best seen by adults.

It's 1885. Camille Claudel (Isabelle Adjani) is a French sculptor and sister of writer Paul Claudel. Famed sculptor Auguste Rodin (Gérard Depardieu) is taken with her work and hires her as an assistant. She becomes both his mistress and protégé. There is prejudice against woman sculptors. The complicated relationship and professional difficulties cause Camille to descend into madness.

Isabelle Adjani is terrific. Her performance is compelling and so is Depardieu. I really like the actors doing their sculpting. I like the obsessive nature of the art work. The plot lacks a certain intensity. It would be helpful to foreshadow her madness earlier in the movie or else the romance caused her mental issues. That's very old fashion melodrama. The running time is also a bit long at almost three hours.

Biography of Camille Claudel. The sister of writer Paul Claudel, her enthusiasm impresses already-famous sculptor Auguste Rodin. He hires her as an assistant, but soon Camille begins to sculpt for herself and for Rodin. She also becomes his mistress. But after a while, she would like to get out of his shadow...

Women as artists is an interesting topic. As with just about every field, men have long been the dominant ones, and women have been left out of history. This seems very strange with regard to artists, though. Why are almost all the famous artists men? You don't need schooling, it's not necessarily a "job". Anyone with talent and free time can be an artist.

Claudel, I confess, is not someone I knew. But, I didn't know her brother either. If not for Rodin, this whole world presented in the film would be foreign to me. Mayhaps I need to brush up on European artists between the wars?