Lou de Laage suffers so beautifully as both the maid Laura
and her mother (a Princess of one of the Italian States
in the French Revolution era). She is too passinonate for
her own good in this adaptation of the Camilo Catelo Branco
romance novel, too devoted to two wrong men -- a womanizing
Marquis and a young boy of mysterious origin. One forsakes
her for an aristocrat (a finely meassured Jenna Thiam); the
other, the sweet Sebastian, forced to leave due to her
depression and ill-health, who eventually forgets her.

The film is adapted by Valeria Sarmiento, ex-collaborator
and widow of Raul Ruiz. I am not really enamored with
or familiar with Ruiz's work, and am distracted by how
meticulously and classically mounted each scene is. The
palaces are always perfectly lighted and furnished. The
camera is never out of its deep focus, even when in
motion. The supposedly squalid prisoners of the French
revolutionaries never have a hair out of place; even
fallen leaves are artfully, symmetrically arranged.
The editing is exceptionally crisp; there is hardly an
ounce of fat. I wonder what the longer version, cut
into a miniseries, is like. The sole concession to
chaos may be a framed painting tilted too conspiciously.

The critics call the director and the film "picturesque,"
and they certainly don't mean an Otto Dix for this
blood-soaked era that also inspires the director's _Lines
of Wellington_. Lou de Laage is already ravishingly
pre-Raphaelte in her maid's garb; when elevated to a
Cardinal's daughter, her outfits are just heart-stopping.
The young actress, one of the best of her generation,
single-handedly animates the emotional turbulance of
those 20+ years of war in this overly tidy film when
neither fellow actors nor directors seem willing to
assert themselves -- just as her two characters chronicle
the swift rise and fall of so many in those times.* It
hits me during my second viewing just how overwhelmingly
sad the film is -- all those missed chances, the way
our passion and memory betray us. Any reservation about
the film is swept away in the swooning final sequences.
Sebastian has to play soldier and try to assassinate
Napoleon. Finally recognize it is him, Laura gives
chase, and before she can let out a cry her heart gives
out. She collapses at the foot of a ruined tree by
the cemetery, her all-green coat and aubrun hair already
blending into the vegetation as the camera rises,
panning down through the browned, falling leaves.

*Even as many noblewomen lost everything, including their
lives, a new generation of French generals and spouses
achieved a prominence that outlasted Napoleon. Indeed
the Corsican Orge owed his early successes to promoting
gifted leaders with extremely humble origins.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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