User Reviews

'Tous les matins du monde' opens with remarkable, yet quiet and simple audacity. For ten minutes, over the credits and beyond, the camera holds on the pained face of Gerard Depardieu. This shot, about as minimalist as you can get, manages to suggest so much: the actual scene itself (Depardieu as Marais giving a music lesson in Royal Chambers to a number of inept students), his own life and sense of failure, aging, dissipation of talent and emotional paralysis despite the signs of status and wealth, the intimations of a past and a place so alien to the modern and showy Court as to be on a different plane of time and space altogether. It is brilliant cinema, while seeming not very cinematic at all.

'Matins' combines two genres I generally find loathsome and redundant, and yet it is very nearly a masterpiece. First of all, it is a biopic; not really of Marais at all, but his one time teacher, Sainte-Colombe, solitary genius of the viol, and possibly the first Romantic artist, someone who composed not for Royalty or riches, but fore himself, from his own soul, alone. The problem with biopics is that they try to cram a whole life into two hours. This clearly doesn't fit, and so only the most superficial precis is possible, with a string of 'key' moments of formative psychological importance. The end result is something like those brief synopses of authors' lives you get at the beginning of books.

Corneau avoids this trap in a number of ways. There is the general atmosphere of fairy tale - the king and his courtiers; the 'cruel' father and the children he locks up in cellars; the abandoned lover and her jealous sister; the fairy-tale location, with its picturesque fragments of classical splendour, and moonlit tarns; the ghost story intrusion of revenants; the mysterious stranger who overturns the family's lives. This extends to the light, the mysterious blue glow that leaves the narrative in a twilight suspension. Depardieu's narration has the unadorned, measured simplicity of fairy tales, and the unmarked accumulation of events gives a timeless feel, one seperate from the historically verifiable Court.

Further, the film doesn't try to cram in the whole of Sainte-Colombe's life. The couple of decades it does deal with are marked by seeming repetiton and monotony. When he claims at one point to have an exciting emotional and imaginary life, his interlocutors are shocked, because they can only see the historical, physical, dour image, not the magic of a mind that converses with the dead, or outpours the most ascetically mournful music. There are key events, but these are domestic and personal (eg the death of his wife) that slowly shape his personality and the events of the film, not jarring 'Eureka!'-like moments. It is up to us to interpret the patterns, the reality behind the plain image, the unmovingly stern face, the routine events.

By the climax, the film stops being a biopic or historical reacreation, and becomes a heightened, spiritual embodiment of ideas about music, family, tradition. This is not to say the film is vague and ahistorical. It is very good about the marginalisation of equally talented women in this world of obsessive male art, where the only useful female is a dead one; and the brief, comical treatment of arbitrary monarchy is as pointed as anything in 'Ridicule'.

The other genre the film belongs to is the dreaded costume drama, that puffed up fashion parade of bourgeois aspiration, where the allusion to people who used their brains is enough to satisfy audiences who refuse to use theirs; where cufflinks and frills are creamily fetishised, and everything else - plot, character, ideas, subtext - is a mere mannequin. If the average costume drama is marked by bustle and excess, Corneau's film is private and austere. The only lavish costumes are made the object of ridicule - Sainte-Colombe, dressed in black and ruff like Monteverdi, and his daughters, live in sober surroundings, and dress very modestly. The usual period props - big homes, lavish halls, etc. - are stripped bare, become almost cell-like, unmarked by human residue.

This extends to the shooting style. The camera very rarely moves, framing the 'action' like a painting or a tableau vivant - the film's fertile theatricality extends to hearing feet thudding on the boards. This seeming visual parsimony is not too austere - unlike the films of Ozu, say, the static picture is broken up by regular editing which makes viewing less taxing. Corneau has learned a lesson about period dramas from Stanley Kubrick, director of the greatest period film, 'Barry Lyndon'. It's useless getting hstorical facts right and swamping the plot with detail - the heart and soul of any society is in its culture, and so Corneau, by recreating or alluding to famous paintings, music etc. gets closer to the truth of his characters. And the lighting...!

This movie is a take on what does music mean. Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (1640-1700), in a wonderfully sensitive performance by Jean-Pierre Marielle, was devastated by the loss of his wife. This inspired him to compose what might have been the first real "soul" music (from the gut) to see the wider audience (i.e. Surviving to this day). His most famous student was Marin Marain (1656-1728), played by Gerard Depardieu (both pere and fils). He was accepted as student but told perhaps a bit too dismissively that although he played well he was most fit for public squares and perhaps the Court, the latter held in deep contempt by Sainte-Colombe.

Subsequently we indeed do see Marain bouncing a pole on the the Royal floor (apparently they way they conducted back then) leading a group of Court musicians in what was simply the music of the age, i.e., pomp and circumstance, but within the context of the story hopelessly dull and inartistic. Can the story mean simply that music should have feeling? Or is there more? A prevailing cliche is when there are no longer words to describe, that's where music starts. Is that good enough? What would Monseiur de Sainte Colombe say about that?

There is a subplot involving love interest that informs the theme. As indicated above, the young Marain is played by Gerard's son with the latter taking over as the adult. Wow, how often does that happen? Depardieu fils is impressive. There are fairly long music passages that the uninitiated might find a tough go but it is a well-made film, meticulously so. Well worth it for those who hang around.

France -17th Century. Little known 17th Century viol player and composer Monsieur de Sainte Colombe regarded public performance as an act that corrupted the purity of music. Since his wife's death, he had lived in isolation with his two daughters Madeleine and Toinette –until a young musician, Marin Marais, convinces him to teach him viol. The ambitious pupil, aware of the unique quality of his master's music, will stop at nothing to get hold of the scores. The entire movie is played in rhythm with the viol -slow, melancholic, pure, beautiful. Action addicts should not even try to watch. But art lovers will have a delightful time.

As a professional musician, there are two things that happen in films that are likely to make me quite angry. One is a general concern, and the other is a more elemental notion of the nature of music. This movie deals with both quite well.

The general concern deals with seeing somebody playing an instrument in a scene. It is very rare to see somebody in a film that really looks like they are playing the instrument they are holding. I will grant that it is unrealistic to expect a leading player who has devoted his/her training to the art of acting to be fully proficient on an instrument that a role may require, but more often than not, they are simply given the instrument without any sort of coaching on how the instrument should be held or where their hands should be when the instrument is making a certain sound. When this happens in a film, my ability to suspend disbelief goes right out the window never to return. This is not limited to lead players, however. Often a band that is supposed to be playing music in the background is made up of actors that have no conception of the operation of the arcane devices they are holding. To add insult to injury, the soundtrack seldom matches up to the instrumentation of the band. This movie does an admirable job at keeping things believable in this regard. The instruments are held correctly. The hands of the actors move as they should. With only a few exceptions, the instruments you hear are the ones that are on screen. Even in terms of historical ideas of ornamentation and execution, this movie has done its homework. It seems that most moviemakers regard music as trivial, and thus, they make little effort for accuracy where it is concerned. This movie, perhaps, works harder at it because of its subject matter, which leads me to part two of this diatribe.

What is music? That is the central idea of this film. There is also a story involving a master viol player and his young student who seduces and abandons his eldest daughter, but it is simply a frame for the central question. If you attempt this sort of thing, you are on dangerous ground as far as I am concerned. It is an attempt that isn't made very often. Movies like Amadeus and Farinelli, entertainment value notwithstanding, are more about the personalities involved, and music is the frame rather than the central question. Others, like the contemptible Mr. Holland's Opus, boil the answer down into some trivial concept like "Let the music play you." The answer is not that easy. Speech may not even be capable of expressing it. That is the struggle of this film. The young student is quite talented. His technique is immaculate. The master sees and admits this quite freely. He is even unconcerned that the young student is taking some of his ideas and using them in his own music for publication. He has nothing to teach him as far as technical matters go. His struggle lies in making him a musician instead of a glorified musical acrobat. In this framework, it would be easy to degenerate into the flaccid trivialities that Mr. Holland's Opus embraces, but this film does not do that. It even lines these idiotic platitudes up in order to shoot them down. (In a scene later in the film when the young man returns to the master's villa to hear him play before he dies, the master asks him, "Have you learned that music is not for kings?" "I have learned that music is for God." he replies. The master answers, "No. God can speak for himself.") It is a tangled and complex question. All of the simple generalizations are systematically lined up and exposed for the twaddle that they are.

So what is the answer? This film knows, but if you don't have some inkling of the answer, you may come away from this film with nothing more than an interesting story set in the music world of 17th century France. I have no idea if the historical details of the story are accurate, and it doesn't matter a jot if they are or not. This movie is about a difficult and complex idea that few have even attempted to tackle, let alone delineate it so beautifully. If the question can be answered for you, this film will do it.

Les Matins is a film for those who have lived enough of life to know that it is a complex mix of pain and joy, with much of it pain, but much of that pain resulting from the greatest of lost joy. Pain that could even eventually give a form of joy again, if it is introspective and searching enough to move one to realize that devastating pain is merely the other side of ecstatic joy. Interrelated, indivisible, and necessary to each other for the severe lessons they teach us as a result of the strength of their inseparable unity.

This primary point was driven home time after time in Les Matins to the point where even the most abject hardheart would soon feel the story's full impact, that the shallow and mediocre fluff of life, no matter how rich, no matter how acclaimed, cannot provide an offset to the bitter agony of lost perfect love, sublime adoration that is well understood in this particular case never to come again to Sainte-Columbe and would surely be less welcome to him in his suffering than would tortured death, no matter how sweet that new love might be to another person less soul-stricken. As the story formed fully, it was seen that death would eventually be a comfort to him by finally joining him with his adored lost love and thereby ceasing his intense worldly torture. His would be a death that ended our collective hope in the discovery of more elegiac beauty in any future music he could have written, but it served to force us to appreciate more fully the few soulful and heart rending pieces he painfully but adoringly accomplished while writing at his personal creative zenith, his apogee in, and as a result of, paramount human suffering. This is a common theme told in many stories through the years, yes, but it is as real and stunning in this film as was ever done in any medium.

Les Matins is the best film story of an artist I have ever seen due to the honesty in which it understands and conveys to the audience the inescapable agony felt by a fatally tortured, artistic genius, and how that agony moved him to write his greatest music.

This is a beautiful movie - everything about it lingers on after you watch it. The music in particular...deep, sweet and sad. Gerard Depardieu is perfect as the ambitious and opportunistic talented viol musician. Alain Corneau makes his viewers feel as if they are right there, in every scene, experiencing the same emotions. Monsieur de Sainte Colombe chooses to live his life as a hermit, shut away from the artificiality and glamour of the royal court. His dedication to his dead wife and the music that he loves are the only things that keep him going. A strict disciplinarian, he forces his daughters to follow the example he has set them, and perhaps this is the reason for Madeleine's later sadness.

All in all, I felt that the film was a touching tribute to the sadness and grief that make true love so beautiful.

Normally I don't listen to classical music. I'm a fan of rock and pop music, which in my opinion is not that bizarre for a 27 year old man, but even though I don't know much about classical music, I can almost always enjoy it when it is used in a movie. The same here. In my opinion, the music may well be the best reason why I want to give this movie another try. I would even say that everybody should watch this movie at least twice. First you should go for the entire movie, so you know the story, and the second time you should close your eyes and turn up the volume in order to fully enjoy the fragile, but oh so beautiful music. I truly wish I knew more about classical music, in order to understand it better. Now I'm only an amateur who can judge in terms of 'I hated it' or 'I loved it', but who isn't able to say much more about it. Still, the movie has more to offer than just the music, the story and the acting are nice as well and that's something I know more to tell about.

This movie starts with an old Marin Marais who is listening to his orchestra that is rehearsing a composition by Monsieur de Sainte Colombe at the royal court in Versailles. But they don't play it the way it should be played and Marin Marais takes a viola da gamba to show them how it should be done. When he starts playing, all his memories about his time with the family de Sainte Colombe return and he starts telling everything: How he first met his master at the age of seventeen, how he fell in love with one of his daughters, how he became appointed to the court of Louis XIV, but never was seen as a real musician by his master... He also tells them that Monsieur de Sainte Colombe had a special way of working and that his music had a special reason of existence for the man. When his wife died and he wasn't home because of his work, the man got overwhelmed by grieve and a severe depression. From that moment on he dedicated his life to music and his two young daughters Madeleine and Toinette, avoiding the outside world and locking himself up in a small wooden shed. It was soon known what a good musician he was, even at the court of Louis XIV, where he was offered a job in the king's orchestra. But he refused because his music wasn't intended for people who didn't understand the real meaning of it: remembering his beloved wife who died too soon.

Despite the fact that in my opinion the Baroque period is probably the worst period in history when it comes to clothing and architecture - it's all much too pompous and over the top to my taste - I must say that it didn't bother me all that much in this movie. The main reason for that is because it wasn't constantly shown. Take for instance Monsieur de Sainte Colombe. Even though he lived in this time period, he didn't wear any of those costumes, but preferred to keep wearing his old and much soberer clothes. The same for his daughters, they never wear those extra large ball gowns, but have quite simple dresses. The only person that wore those clothes was the adult Marin Marais, and he only appears in the last part of the movie. But don't worry, that's about the only bad comment that I have about this movie. The acting and the story are certainly very good and make this movie worth watching. But as I said earlier in this review, nothing could be compared to the wonderful music.

In the end I can only say that everything that I saw, worked. It all looked good and I really don't understand why this movie isn't known by more voters on this website (only 971 at this moment). I believe that the fact that it hasn't been released on DVD yet, can be a reason for that 'problem', but don't let that be a reason not to watch it. When you get the chance to see it on VHS or on television, I certainly should give it a try. I really liked it and I give this movie a 7.5/10.

This film consists of the memories of the famous musician, Marin Marais (Gerard Depardieu), reminiscing about an even greater musician, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe. Now understand, these were real French musicians from the 17th and 18th century, but apparently very, very little is known about Colombe and the story is from a novel consisting of lots of conjecture by Pascal Quignard...so don't accept this as the gospel!

Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (Jean-Pierre Marielle) is a very strange man--an angry weirdo, certainly. His wife died young and unexpectedly and his reaction is odd to say the least. He gave up his work and retreated to his shabby country home with his two young daughters. The home is a rather joyless place though he eventually taught his daughters to play the Viol de Gambon...a seven-stringed musical instrument popular during this era. Over time, they became brilliant at playing and they established quite the reputation...so much so that he is invited to court to play for King Louis XIV. But he is an oddball and so he steadfastly refuses...only playing a yearly concert for locals and otherwise living his simple life.

Into this very mundane world comes a young Marin Marais (played here by Gerard's real life son, Guillaume). He begs Colombe to take him on as a student...something he never did before, aside from teaching his two daughters. And, briefly they work together though it ultimately ends in tragedy...and what that is you'll just have to see for yourself.

If you are wanting to see a happy and uplifting movie, this is NOT for you. Much of the film is very somber and depressing, though the music is also quite lovely. However, it is well made though I am apprehensive to heartily recommend it for two reasons. First, it's not exactly a fun film and is incredibly somber...and some may now want to see such a movie. Second, the film does much to make Marais look like a total jerk...and is that hardly fair to the man's memory considering the story is essentially fiction??

'Tous les matins du monde' is more an experience than a movie. The brainchild of director Alain Corneau, writer Pascal Quignard, and musician Jordi Savall this film integrates the visual with the historicodramatic and the music that created the idea and bathes it in the most sensuously beautiful cinematography of a period (the 17th century) by Yves Angelo who is given the sets and design and costumes by Bernard Vézat and Corinne Jorry that create image after image of masterful still life. The total integration of the work of these masters is the plinth on which the actors offer the memory of two famous composers in French classical music history.

Saint-Colombe (Jean-Pierre Marielle) is a viol player and composer whose wife (Caroline Sihol) dies young leaving him to raise his two daughters young Madeleine (Violaine Lacroix) and young Toinette (Nadège Teron)whom he teaches his art of viol de gamba performance while sequestering himself and his girls in the countryside. Into their garden comes the young handsome son of a shoemaker, Marin Marais (Guillaume Depardieu, the son of Gerard Depardieu) who commits to learning the viol and eventually becomes a court musician only to fall in love with Saint-Colombe's elder daughter Madeleine (Anne Brochet) whom he eventually leaves for the glories of the court. As an adult (Gérard Depardieu pere) he realizes his error and returns to the Saint-Colombe sanctuary where he learns the true meaning of music as being something beyond words and thus something beyond human.

In the course of this quiet little film and in the dramatic lighting of the production design we hear the music of Couperin, Lully, as well as compositions by Marais and Saint-Colombe. Jordi Savall supplies the incidental music that binds these works and offers the viol playing together with a talented group of musicians. The story is small, the dialogue sparse (primarily Depardieu pere narrating his experience as Marais) and for the novice the film could be slow. But the incandescent beauty both visually and aurally make this film a work of art that has not been equaled since its appearance on the scene in 1991. It is a treasure. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

See this and weep. Then weep some more (take tissues). Then listen to the soundtrack and weep along to beautifully-reproduced baroque chamber music.

The story is slow-paced and lovingly-shot, and deals with love, talent and labour being lost on the road to fame and fortune in the big city. Even in the seventeenth century, musicians sold out and left emotional wreckage behind them. (Not to mention one dramatically smashed viol, a suicide and a lot of crushed peaches.)

Though the film's big-name stars are the Depardieus pere et fils, the musical director, Jordi Savall, and the Concert des Nations should be given an equal billing!

This is a rather strange film, which focuses on a heightened musical sense--more metaphysical than aesthetic. Definitely should be appreciated by true music lovers. Nearly the entire story is narrated, even as some of it is dramatized simultaneously, which might annoy some film buffs. Nonetheless, I recommend it for classical music aficionados. The cinematography is also beautiful, so it's worth watching for that, too.

Let's start with the positive aspects: the soundtrack is of course beautiful (altough it can get overbearing sometimes), and one can hear 17th century music at its finest, but to those who are drawn to the film for this aspect, I would rather tell them to hear it independently of the accompanying visuals, since those don't do it any favours. The cinematography and visuals are also gorgeus: some shots look like flemish paintings in their own right, and the costums and locations are well put together and chosen. Overall, coupled with the narration at the very beginning, one tends to thing that this will be a very Barry Lyndon-like movie, as some other reviewer already stated, but it fails miserably along the way. Let me try to explain this.

First of all, the narrative structure of the film. Narration is a very dangerous tool for filmaking, a double edged knife that may aswell end up cutting the rope the films hang on. As I see, it should work as a narrative thread that helps the movie move along, but doesn't overpower the scenes as a narrative device. To sum it up, it should act as an arrow that points the right way, but everything that the narrator states should be backed up (or contested, if we are talking about an unreliable one) by visual evidence, or should be somehow shown in the film. Following up with the previous examples, Barry Lyndon is a film that does this really well, keeping up with the previous example. With Tous les Matins du Monde, however, the opposite happens: a lot of vital information is delivered through narration (which becames exposition, and a really tedious one, by the end of the film), and often it's not backed up by any kind of visual evidence or scene.

There are many instances in the film where this happens, but I will remark the most blatant and significant one: Sainte-Colombe's. Why is this a problem? Well, because she's already dead by the beginning of the film. Thus, we are deprived of a very important component of the viola player's life: his relationship with his wife (the only aspect that defines his character, along with his relationship with his music). And this relaionship is central to the plot, for Sainte-Colombe was purportedly very fond of his wife, and its implied that he had a better self, prior to his old, bitter and maniac one, when his wife was alive. By not showing us this previous life and happy relation with his wife (which her ghostly apparitions fail to tackle) and having the narrator, Marais, explain it to us, it turns out that we, us viewers, haven't got the chance to see the supposed better Sainte-Colombe. Instead, we only see and emotionally impaired and egotistical man, who fails to take care of his daughters and cultivate any human relation and refuses to get over the death of his wife.

And this takes us to the second aspect of this film that I must criticize: the character. Sainte-Colombe comes across as a total douche. He is cruel towards his daughter, towards his disciple and towards his sourroundings in general, charching his family with the maintenance of his property. Instead of a tormented artist, which is what the directors where going for, I assume, we get a rude and unsympathetic man, whose only redeeming trait is that he plays the viola well, which, ultimately, fails to excuse his harmful behaviour or making up for it any way (and no, letting Marais talk to him doesn't count. Basic civility isn't redemption). As for their daughters, which are consistently mistreated by their male counterparts, first their father and then, in the case of poor Madeleine, by his lover, Marais, we never see them have any significant agency or stand up for themselves (except when child Toinette confronts her father with her infantile tantrums). We know they are skilled players and that they lead a restrictive and secluded live, and are in desperate need for same human interaction, but Corneau doesn't seem to care too much about their character or personal growth. Had we seen a movie were one of the daughters, maybe, stood up to him and tried to pursue a music career without the approval of their father, or where Madeleine found solace in music after she was left by Marais, this movie could have been a lot more interesting. I want to make clear these comments don't apply to the actors: I think they did a god job with the material they were given, and Anne Brochet's Madeleine and Dépardieu junior's Marais (who turns out to be the most relatable character in the whole movie) are pretty solid.

And this leads me to the last part of the movie: the script and the pacing. Since part of the narrative weight is carried by the narration, and part of it by the music (which, again, does a god joob but ends up being overbearing at times, and doesn't keep a tangible structure while the movie goes on), the dialogue is much more reduced and most of the spoken text is narrated. Both, however, are really poor. The philosopical excerpts of it are substanceless: the reflections upon the nature of music are too poetic and vague, and the conclusion the movie ends up giving (music, and maybe any form of art, is the result of loss and suffering) is questionable at best. I do not agree with the stance that music is something that is only achieved through loss or "genius", and that the music that Sainte-Colombe plays is somehow better that what his disciple plays, simply because one is trying to express is unfathomable grief and the other tries to express love or be a better musician for the sake of social success, and the movie doens't give any consistent or grounded answer for this, beyond the consistent negative of Sainte-Colombe to talk about it. And, since the movie is trying really hard to sell us this "tormented artist" and "music comes through grief" narrative, many of the scenes end up being supposedly intense scenes of Sainte-Colombe playing is viola or an emotional scene that doesn't hold much narrative weight and goes on much too long (like the one shot of Depardieu's face, right from the start). Thus, the narrative pace is ruined, and a film that otherwise could have been a pleasure to watch ends up being really tortuous. I generally like slow-paced films, but every film needs a narrative thread that carries it along. Here they tried to do it with the music, but it wasn't nearly enough.

Summing up, look it up if you really are into the music or the visuals and have some patience, what I wouldn't reccomend it do to the bad work the film does story and character-wise. I understand why some people liked it and glossed over the negative aspects I mentioned, but I wasn't able to. It's a shame, though, that it turned out like this, since it could really have been a much greater film.

This is a great movie. It's a stunning look at the nature of music and it's a wonderful example of the relationship between music and film. So often in film, music is the afterthought; it's the last step of the production process and often the least considered through production. Corneau's film really works well to blend the visual medium of film with music and show them working in tandem for a brilliant result.

When you hear music in this film, you hear it because a character has picked up an instrument to play it. The film then cuts away from character and instrument, but the music remains and turns into a soundtrack that enhances the emotional power of the film. This is source music used as score, and very rarely do you see that in film. Using the music in this way really deepens the experience and strengthens both the images of the film and the emotion of the music. A music student gave me this movie to watch, and I want to pass it on to film students looking to blend the arts of film and music.

Poignant, bittersweet biography, told via flashback by French Royal Court composer, Marin Marais (portrayed by Gerard Depardieu); of his legendary musical mentor, Sainte Colombe (Jean-Pierre Marielle).

The story stays coherent, interesting and draws the viewer into the tale, without a hint of manipulation. The bizarre master musician tows his pupil and us, towards his passion, through the sheer love and artistry of his craft.

Music is no prostitute to Master Sainte Colombe, which is more than can be said for his pupil. Alas, like many of us, lessons taught too late. Reveal the layers to discover this gem. This music will possess you. Exceptional in every sense of the word.

This is a movie about a famous (albeit somewhat mysterious)"viol" player and composer in XVII century France. The viol was the direct ancestor of the violin. The French school for this instrument is very important , although too often forgotten since the violin took over. The movie presents what little is known about the composer. This makes a very romantic and fascinating plot. The music is outstanding and was a best-seller in many european countries.It is played by some of the best early music interpreters. Photography of the "Ile de France" scenery and acting are both very good. The combination should not fail to entrance all lovers of baroque music. I hope someone comes up with a DVD version ,to further enhance the musical enchantment.

It's late 17th century. The viola da gamba player Monsieur de Sainte Colombe comes home to find that his wife died while he was away. In his grief he builds a small house in his garden into which he moves to dedicate his life to music and his two young daughters Madeleine and Toinette, avoiding the outside world.

The first thing that struck me about this film was the title. Although it has a translation as a subtitle, the proper title is the French one, even for the American release. That is rather uncommon, and would tend to scare people away, so it was a brave decision on someone's part.

And the second thing is Gerard Depardieu. As I understand it, this was still a couple years before American audiences knew who he was. It is easy to see how he went from national (French) fame to international. He is clearly the breakout actor in everything he does.

A person wishing to see the stamp that imposture, venality, perfidy and lies put on a human face should only watch French historical dramas. Corrupt sybarites tiptoe around royal courts, wheezing under the weight of their wigs and lifestyles. Theirs are faces that sag with a permanent combination of distaste and craving; their very eyes can seduce and pollute with a single glance.

This is one of the faces we see, in a long close-up, as the opening shot of this movie. Marin Marais is a greatly respected musician at the King's court, but he's seen better days, and dozes fitfully while his viola students argue about technique. He wakes and critiques every one of them pitilessly, then turns the lash upon himself. He tells them of a life spent in self-aware mediocrity next to an artist who possesses a purity and passion that can't be learned.

This man is Marais's teacher – a fictionalized version of 17th-century musician Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, who wrote great music for the viola. His beloved wife dies of an illness while he's entertaining nobility. Sainte-Colombe returns home, looks at her body and walks out of society with his two young daughters. They live cold and silent lives in the countryside, until a young man shows up for an apprenticeship and won't leave. He's capable enough on the instrument, but does he have the soul of an artist? Sainte-Colombe decides to teach him.

The master doesn't speak in comprehensible sentences. The metaphors that make up his speech are disjointed dabs of emotion and color, like flat projections of an immeasurable and many-dimensional shape. His disciple certainly doesn't understand them, and has no adequate response.

For Sainte-Colombe, words are a paltry and clumsy thing; music is the only way to express the ineffable – endless grief, impossible to describe, impossible to write about, impossible to film, finds an outlet in music. His bow cries and tears across the strings, and all the world's sorrow pours out. There's a good reason this soundtrack became one of France's best-sellers.

Marin Marais is played first by Gerard Depardieu's son, and as he grows from a limber young man into a fat and powdered courtier, by Depardieu himself. He sincerely wants to live up to his master, but there are so many girls to chase, so many ladders to climb. He is a man of quick and shallow passions, and once he moves on, his old attachments become nothing but mild embarrassments. He is not an evil man, but his indifferent cruelty ends up leading to appallingly tragic results. "He didn't want to be a shoemaker" is one of the most heart-rending lines I've ever heard. In the end, which is the film's beginning, Marais is left with a life spent in pursuit of easy applause, asking his master's ghost for forgiveness.

Tous les Matins du Monde is a rare film – capable of drawing us into a different consciousness, and helping us understand and appreciate something we had never contemplated before. It's a torrent of music and feeling, and there are no protective walls of irony around it. Whether you're interested in Baroque music, or merely the power of cinema, this one is worth seeing.

I had never heard of Marin Marais or Sainte-Colombe before watching Alain Corneau's César-winning "Tous les matins du monde" ("All the Mornings of the World" in English), so that made it more of a surprise. One might call the movie an anti-epic: although it focuses on a pair of 17th-century historical figures, it takes an understated approach to the subject matter. The music is the main character, decorating almost every scene as Sainte-Colombe teaches Marais the viola de gamba.

The movie might be hard to follow if you know little about musical instruments or if you know little about the era. Even so, you should watch it. It's not a biopic in the traditional sense, avoiding heavy focus on the characters. It's all about the characters' passion and how it influenced their relations with other people.

Check it out if you get a chance.

Other reviews have focused on the music, but this film is not really about guys in funny clothes with ribbons speaking French and playing cellos with 7 strings instead of 4. It is a meditation on two opposite forms of male egotism: the older genius who is too good for the world and everyone in it and the younger opportunist who will use anyone and anything – including his own talent – to get ahead. They meet, mesh, clash, and part over music for the viol (viola da gamba), not incidentally leaving the older man's daughter pregnant, ill, and ultimately a suicide. The story is narrated by the opportunist – now old himself – as a confession, to a room full of his sycophantic music students at the court of Louis XIV (the character, Marin Marais was an actual composer of the time, as was the older man, M. de Sainte Colombe). No other film since Bergman's best seduces you into such hypnotized concentration or breaks your heart with such economy of action.

A very original and interesting historic movie that tells the story of a famous French composer and cellist of the 17th century M. de Saint Colombe, who outcasts himself from the Court and society, refuses to play in public and teach anybody who is not his daughters, and lives simply with his three daughters in their countryside manor, devoted to a simple strict and almost ascetic life.

The script is very good as analyzes the opposition between fame-quality in Art and in the personal life of an artist, and between music as a bunch of sounds and music as a piece of art. The personal stories of conquest and love are quintessentially 17th century, very charming and naughty on one hand, very fresh and naive on the other. The atmosphere of the movie is very good, and mixes well both bucolic and baroque elements typical of the art and life in that period.

The acting is OK in their roles, although none of them shines especially. Moreover, the training of the actors to fake their playing of the instruments is poor, and you can see clearly that they are not playing. We all know that, but a little bit of more training in mimicking the play would have added credibility to those scenes, which, otherwise just look fake. The movie is very slow and unengaging at the beginning, but being a little patient pays off at the end.

The movie is a little bit dull at times, but it has a good script, wonderful viola and cello music, and explores interesting concepts.

It's as futile to lump 'Amadeus', 'My Brother Vincent', 'Immortal Beloved', and 'Tous les matins du monde' together as it is to indiscriminately group all films about crime or all sci-fi flicks. So with pretentious generalizations on "art films" out of the way, I'd like to point out that 'Tous les matins' masters the art of pacing in a film. The story unravels in a process like the blooming of a flower -- consistent, organic, and fascinating, albeit a shade slow.

Secondly, any renaissance/baroque music fans should see this film merely for its delightful scoring. Though early European music may be an acquired taste, "Tous les matins" presents the viola de gamba in all its expressive glory, foreshadowing works like Bach's well-known cello suites. If the quasi-deep attempts to address the definition of music bother you (as they occasionally bothered me), the complementation of the music and the film's pacing will captivate you nonetheless.

And offhand, fans of Julian Sands (especially in 'Impromptu')will get a kick out of comparing him to Guillaume Depardieu as the young Marin Marais...;)