Though unmistakably a television production, this fine-looking adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1946 English Civil War centred novel transports us instead to revolutionary France and the all-consuming and bloodily divisive conflict in the Vendée region that raged from 1793 to 1796. The film proves from the outset to be a wonderfully involving variation on the celebrated author's source material.
The production benefits from a fine mood and attention to period detail that sets the scene in engaging fashion. The film as it unfurls proves too to be sweepingly evocative and sensually romantic, despite being modestly budgeted. At the same time, the film-makers subtly convey the ever-more encroaching and palpable air of inevitability that afflicts and derails existences as the bleakness and creeping brutality of a nation swirling in the throes of bloody conflict hoves into the consciousness and awareness of those increasingly caught up in this path of discontent, conflict and suffering.
There is an elegant yet adventurous and passionate eroticism to the scenes between Samuel Le Bihan and Louise Monot that is well contained and allowed to subtly permeate and colour proceedings as the starkness of the situation becomes ever more apparent to the wealthy. I found the film to be a gripping, fascinating, and hugely praiseworthy directorial outing from the sadly now deceased Nina Companeez. The restrained yet sweeping scope and the subtlety of observation from actors and director alike has brought forth a richly rewarding and very moving film that can thankfully stand as rather a fitting adaptation of du Maurier's meticulously researched novel.
The production benefits from a fine mood and attention to period detail that sets the scene in engaging fashion. The film as it unfurls proves too to be sweepingly evocative and sensually romantic, despite being modestly budgeted. At the same time, the film-makers subtly convey the ever-more encroaching and palpable air of inevitability that afflicts and derails existences as the bleakness and creeping brutality of a nation swirling in the throes of bloody conflict hoves into the consciousness and awareness of those increasingly caught up in this path of discontent, conflict and suffering.
There is an elegant yet adventurous and passionate eroticism to the scenes between Samuel Le Bihan and Louise Monot that is well contained and allowed to subtly permeate and colour proceedings as the starkness of the situation becomes ever more apparent to the wealthy. I found the film to be a gripping, fascinating, and hugely praiseworthy directorial outing from the sadly now deceased Nina Companeez. The restrained yet sweeping scope and the subtlety of observation from actors and director alike has brought forth a richly rewarding and very moving film that can thankfully stand as rather a fitting adaptation of du Maurier's meticulously researched novel.
