Le Hussard sur le toit (1995)
Directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau

Film Review

Jean-Paul Rappeneau followed his lavish and enormously successful Cyrano de Bergerac (1990) with an equally extravagant period romp, Le Hussard sur le toit, a bold attempt to combine the grandeur and poetry of the film that preceded it with the adolescent gusto of the director's earlier Les Mariés de l'an II (1971).  This time Rappeneau takes as his source a well-known novel by the writer Jean Giono, whose works had often been adapted for French cinema, most effectively by Marcel Pagnol in the 1930s (Angèle, La Femme du boulanger, Regain).  Before he embarked on the project, the most ambitious of his career, Rappeneau declared that it was impossible to adapt Giono's complex and sprawling epic novel, and, judging by the ungainly cinematic monster he ended up creating, he may well have been right.

Le Hussard sur le toit had a colossal budget, a large proportion of which came from the French tax payer in the form of generous subsidies.   At a cost of 176 million French francs, this was to be the most expensive film made in France at that time, and in purely visual terms it rivalled anything made in Hollywood during the 1990s.  The worldwide success of Claude Berri's Jean de Florette (1986) spearheaded a dramatic revival of French cinema in the late 1980s, and similar visually stunning slices of Provençal life, such as Yves Robert's La Gloire de mon père (1990), were guaranteed international popularity (to the extent that they ended up being parodied in TV commercials for a well-known brand of beer).  Le Hussard sur le toit capitalised on this fad for picturesque epics and proved to be another box office hit, both in France (where it attracted an audience of 2.5 million) and abroad.  Critical reaction to the film was mixed but it was still nominated for ten Césars, winning awards for its cinematography and sound.

For all its bluster and over-egged artistry, Le Hussard sur le toit essentially boils down to a two-handed road movie in which a moody Olivier Martinez lusts over Juliette Binoche (who tries unconvincingly to be impervious to his charms) as they traipse across acres of chocolate box French countryside, bumping into the odd celebrity actor along the way.  The chemistry between the two photogenic lead actors is just right but both are let down by a mediocre script which fails to allow either of their characters to develop.  Martinez does a good impression of someone who has just discovered he has been cast in a role that Jean-Paul Belmondo turned down, whilst Binoche spends most of her time looking as if she is advertising a brand of skin lotion.  The edgy rapport between these two instantly likeable actors keeps our attention focused on the screen but fails to distract from the gaping hole that is the non-existent plot.

For the most part, Le Hussard sur le toit is a plodding and drawn out affair that struggles to justify its languorous two hours and twenty minutes of runtime.  The appeal of the Thierry Arbogast's sumptuous location photography soon wears thin as the superficiality of the plot and characters becomes painfully evident, and were it not for the stream of talented supporting actors whizzing past the camera (François Cluzet, Pierre Arditi, Isabelle Carré and - best of all - Jean Yanne), the film would soon become unbearably monotonous.  1980s French cinema was often, rightly, criticised for being 'all look and no substance', and the same can equally be said of Le Hussard sur le toit. 

By the mid-1990s, weaned on over-generous government sponsorship, there were signs that French cinema was coming dangerously close to the Hollywood blockbuster model, favouring mindless spectacle over serious dramatic content.  Films such as the Luc Besson-produced Taxi (1998) and Claude Zidi's Astérix et Obélix contre César (1999) appeared to confirm this worrying trend, but fortunately the late 1990s also saw the emergence of a whole new wave of committed auteurs who ensured that French cinema remained as rich and diverse as ever.  The most disappointing thing about Le Hussard sur le toit is that it totally squanders the opportunity to bring to life a great work of French literature and instead is content to be nothing more than an overblown populist romp, strutting its gold-plated production values like an overfed peacock but failing to leave a lasting impression.

Film Synopsis

In the summer of 1832, Europe is in the grip of a terrible cholera epidemic.  With the demise of Napoleon and the disintegration of the French Empire, Austria is poised to overtake Italy.  Against this turbulent backdrop, a brave young Italian soldier, Angelo Pardi, undertakes a mission to save his country.  He flees to southern France on horseback to join his fellow patriots, intending to gather together a small army to fight against the Austrians when they invade his country.   The cholera outbreak has decimated the region and, worse, Angelo and his allies are pursued by merciless Austrian agents.  When all appears lost, Angelo takes shelter in a house in the town of Manosque, where he meets Pauline de Théus, a young noblewoman who lives alone.  Moved by Pauline's generosity towards him, Angelo takes her under his wing and offers his help in tracking down her missing husband...