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L’ANGLAISE
ET LE DUC
5/10
The
Lady and the Duke / The Englishwoman and the Duke : France 2001
director/script
: Eric Rohmer (based on journals of Grace Elliott)
cinematography : Diana Baratier
editing : Mary Stephen
lead actors : Lucy Russell, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Leonard Cobiant, Caroline
Morin
125 minutes
L’Anglaise
et le Duc is a fairly stodgy bit of historical costume-drama, gussied
up with digital-video technology. Veteran director Rohmer must think he’s
being deliciously perverse by using such ‘futuristic’ tools to bring the
past to life, using the journal kept by an aristocratic ‘Englishwoman’
(she’s actually Scots, but never mind) as his starting-point to recreate
Paris in the torrid, post-Revolution 1790s. The major gimmick is to place
actors ‘inside’ paintings of the streets and surrounding landscapes –
this works OK, but the paintings themselves aren’t anything special, and
critics who’ve praised this approach as ‘experimental’ and ‘revolutionary’
have obviously never seen much British schools TV, where such techniques
have been standard for many years - though more for reasons of cost-cutting
than anything else.
The
‘tableau vivant’ interludes are at least visually interesting – and they’re
a major relief from the endless, static interior scenes in drawing-rooms
that make up the vast bulk of L’Anglaise. Rohmer’s execution of
his intriguing material is too stilted and monotonous to give it much
in the way of drama or kick, though shooting the movie on DV does give
it an odd look – and, more importantly, an odd, brittle kind of sound.
Werner Herzog’s Heart
of Glass showed how bold, experimental techniques can be used
to present a plausibly alien view of the past, likewise positioning its
characters on a razor-sharp, historical-revolutionary cusp.
But
L’Anglaise bogs down into talk talk talk – English actress Russell
deserves some kind of a medal for her stamina, as this Grace Elliott never
seems to shut up, and nearly every word she says is in perfect French.
Russell even modulates Grace’s accent in the moments when the Lady needs
to feign awkwardness with her adopted language. And she’s certainly a
resourceful, spirited figure, horrified by the bloodthirsty excesses of
the violent revolutionaries but determined to campaign for what she believes
is right – even if, to modern eyes, it’s hard to sympathise with her ardent,
unquestioning royalism.
She’s
certainly in the right place at the right time: the diaries are as invaluable
dispatches from a jagged historical front line. As her friend the Duc
d’Orleans (Dreyfus) notes, the Revolution will probably be beneficial
for humanity in the long run – but, as we see, it’s not much fun for those
who have to live through the worst consequences. This France is a ruthless
etat policier, a constantly shifting web of informers, conspirators,
witch-hunters, and backstabbers, with Grace never more than a step or
two away from the guillotine.
Grace’s
relationship with the Duke (Dreyfus) is, depending on the political situation,
either extremely handy or perilously dangerous, and her grisly fate seems
sealed when a compromising letter is discovered hidden in a drawer. Grace
must face a kangaroo court, and it’s real knife-edge stuff - but too little
and much too late. By the time things start to finally get interesting,
many viewers will have walked out, switched off, or fallen asleep.
27th
October, 2001
(seen
Oct-26-01, National Film Theatre – London Film Festival)
For comments
sent to us by Jean Baptiste Marot who was
involved artistically in the film click here
This film appeared
in the Fipresci Selection 2001-2002 : click here
for full list
by Neil
Young
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