Une femme douce

From the balcony of her Parisian apartment, a young woman (Dominique Sanda, The Conformist) jumps to her death. Her body is moved to the bed that she shared with her husband Luc (Guy Frangin), a pawnbroker she met at a time of need. Through a series of flashbacks, Luc reflects on their marriage and the events that may have led to her suicide. With his first colour film, director Robert Bresson (Pickpocket) continues his career-long fascination with the work of Fyodor Dostoyevsky in this striking chamber drama about a crumbling marriage. Anchored by a starmaking turn from the then-unknown Dominique Sanda, Une femme douce is a masterful and timeless meditation on male-female relationships. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• 2K restoration from the original negative
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Audio commentary by Michael Brooke (2025)
• Over Her Dead Body - a visual essay by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin (2025, 17 mins)
• Archival interview with Robert Bresson (1969, 7 mins)
• Archival interview with Dominique Sanda (1987, 6 mins)
• Image gallery
• New English subtitle translation
• Sleeve featuring design based on original poster by Olga Poláčková-Vyleťalová 

Year: 1969
Country: France
Cert: 15
Format: Blu-ray
Region: B
RAD151BD
EAN: 5060974683000
Release date: 14/09/2026

Press:

“Une femme douce belongs among the greater Bresson films” - Roger Greenspun, The New York Times

"Bresson crafts a sublime, mysterious meditation on the struggle of the spirit in a world that values only what can be bought and sold" - Harvard Film Archive

★★★★★ - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian