The Diary of a Chambermaid

The second screen version of Octave Mirbeau's novel (originally filmed in 1946 by Jean Renoir), Diary of a Chambermaid charts the ambitions of Celestine (Jeanne Moreau), a woman who comes to work in the 1930s for a Normandy estate occupied by Monsieur Rabour, his daughter, and the daughter's husband, Monsieur Montiel. Celestine quickly learns that M. Rabour is a more or less harmless boot fetishist, his daughter a frigid woman more concerned with the family furnishings than in returning the affections of her husband, who, in turn, can't keep his hands off the servants. The gamekeeper, Joseph, is a fascist who keeps his masters informed of all the doings downstairs, and the next-door neighbor is a veteran who can't stand Monteil and is sharing a bed with his housekeeper. Celestine picks her way through this minefield carefully, spurning the advances of all of the men until it's convenient for her.