Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

MARIO GAUCI Despite – or perhaps because of – its being atypically filmed in German, this remains one of Rohmer's more recognized titles. The period setting (the director's first, though not last, feature to adopt this) lends an aesthetic quality in this case which complements – or, one might say, excuses – his customary austerity. The simple plot proves quietly fascinating throughout: an aristocratic lady is saved from near-rape by an enemy Count (Bruno Ganz); though the woman is no great beauty, the man apparently loses his head over her, almost compromising his own rank into the bargain. The Marquise and her family cannot understand this impulsive behavior but, then, she finds herself mysteriously pregnant; her parents and brother obviously shun her, but the returning Count is even more intent on marrying her (she is a widow who has already borne two children). Eventually, the Marquise puts an ad in a newspaper requesting the father to present himself – and, at the appointed hour, it is none other than the mortified Count himself who turns up (having apparently taken advantage of her while she was unconscious on the night of the attack)! As with all of the director's work, this is certainly not for all tastes but, as I said at the beginning, it is exquisitely filmed (by Nestor Almendros) on wonderful and expansive locations – though the approach is thoroughly low-key (mostly confined to medium shots of people conversing against a backdrop of candle-lit interiors), in keeping with the intimate nature of the tale. While, for all his straining for realism, even Rohmer's modern-day efforts could be deemed contrived on occasion, here he seems to have embraced a deliberate artificiality (the expulsion of the bewildered heroine in particular is redolent of barnstorming melodramas!) perhaps to better convey the intolerant morality of its (distant) time. Though I am not sure parallels to the Immaculate Conception were intended, THE MARQUISE OF O does recall Manoel De Oliveira's contemporaneous and, regrettably, little-known BENILDE OR THE VIRGIN MOTHER (1975) which, while comparably 'self-conscious', is perhaps an even more compelling, thought-provoking – and altogether spiritual – experience.

Andres Salama This Franco-German co production is the weakest of Rohmer's historical movies (a group of films that includes such accomplished works as The Lady and the Duke, Perceval, and Triple Agent), perhaps because its subject matter seems hopelessly dated. Based on a novel by Heinrich Von Kleist and set during the Napoleonic wars, it tells the tale of a young marquise rescued during an assault to his estate by a brooding count (a young Bruno Ganz). Unfortunately, from that brief encounter the marquise gets pregnant, a huge problem during that time and on account of her position in society. Aside from a dated central conflict, the film is also dull and static, without the redeeming dialogue and interaction between the actors that one sees in other Rohmer films. The director, by the way, plays an amusing cameo as a French general.

jcnsoflorida Erich Rohmer's adaptation of a novella by Heinrich von Kleist is visually remarkable. If you can imagine a painting by Jacques Louis David come to life, that is what this film looks like. Clearly a lot of attention was paid to colors and lighting. Aficionados of neoclassicism should not miss it. I believe this was Bruno Ganz's first film and the other players, particularly Edith Clever, are fine as well. The tone is one of social satire tempered by comedy. A number of Netflix viewers have complained that the film requires a lot of patience. I don't agree. It requires an interest in the period, perhaps. Recommended for the discerning.

tedg Spoilers herein.Greens and ochres. Germans and Russians. The expected disguised as mystery. I am beginning to appreciate the profound power that films have to define life today. I became interested in this film for two reasons. (It is my initial Rohmer.) The first is that it is about the influence of image on society using modern film but set in a time before film images had any power. So the images are from painting. Rohmer is a film intellectual, perhaps so aggressively so the term has no meaning. At any rate, I knew what he intended this film to be about: ideals, film and consequences.The second reason this got bumped up on my list is because I admire Greenaway's ideas on vision and soul. And HIS list of the ten best films includes this one! I can definitely see why superficially. This is a very paintery experience: extremely composed. Every action has physical grace which defines the story: one can easily watch it with no sound.The story is in the manner of a German Austen adapted for the stage -- it is a little too `Bulwer-Lytton'-ish for my taste, and Greenaway's too to judge by `Draughtsman's Contract.' The camera is in the manner recently seen in `Mood for Love.' Languid.