The mini-series _Anna Karenina_ could have been called "Ekaterina Shcherbatskaya." It reminds us that adaptations can be so fascinating.
I haven't read the novel; in the previous two film versions I've seen
the character "Kitty" barely registers. Here the focus is to highlight
the contrast between the Kitty/Levin relation and the Anna/Count
Vronsky one. This contrast was surely one of Tolstoy's aims (the Levin character is said to be his stand-in), but was mostly glossed over in
previous films. Whether by design or unlucky accident, the Kitty story
line crushes Anna's. Instead of Sophie Marceau or Keira Knightley, the
Italian TV actress Vittoria Puccini plays Anna. Puccini is probably
good in other productions, but isn't exactly the most decorated actor
or scintillating presence. Kitty is played by Lou de Laage (_The
Innocents_, _Breathe_), one of the best young French actress of her
generation alongside Lea Seydoux and Melanie Laurent. Her role is
rewritten so she comes off as an ultramodern woman (going to Germany
to tend to wounded soldiers, not in the novel I think). Levin is
soulful and philosophical too, while the Vronsky character is mostly
a pretty face. The director did try to give the Karenina/Vronsky
affair heft, mind you, in the form of close-ups and really heavy
handed music, but there is no real contest. If the adaptation is
meant to be subversive, to let Kitty usurp Anna, it is a complete
triumph! (Kitty actually shows up before Anna does in the series.)
I wish Lou de Laage is more appreciated. She is a chameleon who
excels in any role, and French cinema doesn't really know what to
do with such actresses.

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Reviews by professional critics are brutal for _It Happened in
Saint-Tropez_ by director Daniele Thompson. I wonder why. The
brilliance of _Queen Margot_, for which she was credited as write
was long ago. After her _Avenue Montaigne_, my expectations are
really low. (In that previous film, a concert pianist stops in the
middle of a concerto, rips off his tie, feels better, and exhorts
the orchestra to play on -- completely ignoring that this is
totally unprofessional and selfish, and disrupts the rhythm
and mood of everyone else. One of the most stupid scenes about
classical music on film. And he's supposed to be the hero.) Here
the protagonist is a cellist too, but she's much more serious
about music. She has various misadventures with her extended
Jewish family. This is one of Lou de Laage's early starring
roles, and while the film is a straight-forward romantic comedy
she already gets to show off her considerable range. She is not
bad with the cello either, but I'm no expert. One wonders what
she (and her gorgeous cousin character) see in Max Boublil's
character Sam, though.

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I saw _L'Attesa_ in theater before. Juliette Binoche is an astonishing, empathic actress; her every gesture, every facial expression is utterly compelling and compulsively watchable. The downside is that less talented costars working opposite her can be badly exposed. (See Johansson in
_Ghost in the Shell_!). I rewatched _L'Attesa_ to see how Lou de Laage
(playing her son's girlfriend) fares. She holds her own, even if the
rhythm is different from her previous work. In the film's best scene she
is dancing to Leonard Cohen, radiant and commanding everyone's attention;
then Binoche reappears, and de Laage recoils to the depths, to the very
dark place she is capable of. It was almost a meta-cinema,
passing-of-the-torch moment between the actresses. Their camaraderie
and mutual jealousy form the core of the film. The film shows its
debt to Kieslowski's _Blue_ -- starring none other than Binoche (24
years younger) as another grieving widow. But _Blue_ ends on a
transcendental epiphany, with Binoche's character breaking out of
her self-imposed isolation to finish the Concerto for the Unification
of Europe. By comparison, _L'Attesa_, and the 2010s, seem so
diminished and lost; not even the Easter celebration could raise
Binoche's spirit. We could use more of Kieslowski's metaphysical
courage.

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