Counter culture

DVDs

The Midwife

Directed by MARTIN PROVOST

Starring CATHERINE DENEUVE, CATHERINE FROT

The Teacher

Directed by JAN HREBEJK

Starring ZUZANA MAURÉRY

In other hands — in Hollywood, perhaps — The Midwife might easily have settled for sappy sentimentality. Instead, it’s a funny, wise celebration of everyday pleasures anchored by vintage performances from the two great Catherines of French cinema.

Deneuve owns the screen as Béatrice, an ageing good-time girl with a terminal disease and a need to belatedly make amends. She contacts Claire, the daughter of a lover she abandoned half a lifetime ago, only to learn he’s long dead and Claire, a single mother and dedicated midwife, still resents her. As a frugal vegetarian non-drinker, she also disapproves of Béatrice’s beef-and-booze lifestyle, financed through playing poker in smoky rooms.

In French, “midwife” or “wise woman” ( can also mean “well-behaved”), so the joke in the title is which woman is really the smart one: the prim, buttoned-up professional or the rash, improvident pleasure seeker? As she mothers the ailing older woman, Claire, of course, will learn to take a few risks in her own life, while Béatrice ... probably won’t change a thing. But if you think you can see where this is going, there are plenty of surprises in store.