AUTHOR: Elisenda Julibert
PUBLISHER: Acantilado
GENRE: Essay/Non-fiction
READER’S NAME: Kathleen Meredith
DATE: August 21st, 2023
Hommes fatales is an examination of male desire, specifically concerning the femme fatale archetype present in film and literature throughout history. Debut author Elisenda Julibert defines the femme fatale as a woman whose sexuality and/or femininity results in the inevitable destruction and suffering of her male devotee, the concept originating first in ancient myths and then later reimagined in popular culture. The femme fatale often occupies the role of the duplicitous siren, the manipulative seductress, or the angelic virgin. Through a series of case studies from classic films and literature, Julibert deconstructs the idea of the femme fatale as a woman executing a series of specific behaviors and develops a new argument that this perception of a deadly, manipulative woman is instead a manifestation of the male’s desire and the fantasy he creates in his pursuit of her.
Julibert opens the book by exploring the novel Carmen by Prosper Mérimée—readers may be more familiar with the eponymous opera based on the book. She maintains that Carmen is a prime example of the typical narrative arc of a femme fatal character in literature, in which the male narrator relates the events that led to his eventual misery and wayward path. He describes himself as a victim of his lover, the first-person voice emphasizing his sole perspective. In the case of Carmen, the male protagonist claims he had to kill Carmen to be free of her influence and his unrestrained desire for her. He echoes the all too common refrain of those who fall prey to the femme fatal, she effectively left him with no choice. Julibert then goes on to discuss the 1977 film, That Obscure Object of Desire by Luis Buñuel, in which she expands on her discussion of male desire, asserting that it results in a quixotic idea of the woman and effectively limits that woman’s ability to exist as a whole person within the narrative. This theory is only strengthened by Buñuel’s use of two actresses in the aforementioned film, emphasizing the unreliability of the male gaze in the following examples. In the next chapter, Julibert considers the convergence of jealousy and desire in two of Marcel Proust’s two short stories, where yet again the male protagonist is left with no choice but to hold his lover captive (‘The Prisioner’) or to take his own life (‘The End of Jealousy’) in order to fulfill his desire or be free from it. The author then moves on to one of the more recognizable femme fatales, the shrewd Madeleine-Judy in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film, Vertigo, who must die for the male protagonist to be cured of his acrophobia. Julibert then considers Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov as another study of how this exaggerated, relentless male desire warps reality, resulting in a contrived environment in which the man’s wants and wishes are deemed appropriate and he is exempted from any culpability for his own suffering during his journey to fulfill his desires. Finally, Julibert explores Bouvard and Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert as an illustration of the morbid pattern of desire and then suffering that plays out in many of these narratives. In the end, she argues that the protagonist will never be satisfied, even when he attains the object of his desire, which is not the true woman but a projection of desire, and ultimately suffers at the cost of his own ill-fated and delusional desire, not at the hands of the woman.
Julibert makes many astute and thought-provoking observations throughout Hommes Fatales, creating a comprehensive argument for redefining the figure of the femme fatale, ultimately asserting that the femme fatal does not exist, but is merely a literary invention steeped in patriarchal thinking. The title is a nod to this idea, that the male protagonists are ultimately the ones responsible for their downfall, not the women who have historically occupied that role. Julibert’s writing is clear and emphatic throughout, and at times tinged with humor and irony. I found the book readable, but it does slant more towards an academic work than a commercially viable nonfiction read and perhaps would be a better fit for an academic publisher. This book is aimed at an educated audience who is familiar with feminist theory as well as having an interest in classic film and European literature. Although not necessary, the reader may find their reading more fruitful if they have read and watched the aforementioned novels and movies before beginning the book, as Julibert sometimes makes assumptions about the reader’s familiarity with the plots of each example she cites.
It would be remiss not to mention that the most recent example discussed in the book (That Obscure Object of Desire) was released almost 50 years ago. And although Julibert applies a modern feminist framework to her understanding of these films and books, the examples and discussion do not include any more recent examples of a femme fatale character nor does she bring her discussion up to present-day understandings of this archetype. Furthermore, the book fails to include any discussions of race in connection to male desire or examples that do not center on a white protagonist, apart from a brief mention of Carmen’s exoticism due to her Romani heritage. In my opinion, this was a gap in Julibert’s analysis and could be perceived as out of date with current understandings of intersectional feminism in the U.S.
