Les Destinées sentimentales (2000)
Directed by Olivier Assayas

Film Review

This lavish period epic is an unexpected and radical departure for director Olivier Assayas, who has acquired a reputation as very modern and unconventional film-maker, the epitome of the film auteur. His previous works include the shockingly realist social drama L'Eau froide and the stylish self-referential homage to the low-budget film-maker, Irma Vep.  With Les Destinées sentimentales, Assayas' most ambitious film to date, the director moves into very new territory, that of the classic literary adaptation.

The film is as much a tribute to France cinema's rich history of period drama as it is a work in its own right.  What is perhaps most striking about this film is how it combines the conventional (high production values, star actors, plenty of location work) with the unconventional (principally the use of hand-held camera to give a greater impression of intimacy and motion). The film is at once recognisable as a quality period film, but feels curiously different, and the hand of the director is quite noticeable (which is rare in this kind of film).

There is a great deal that is good about this film.  Closely adapted from a novel by the fairly obscure writer Jacques Chardonne, the film has the feel of a great work of literature, thanks mainly to its epic length, three-part structure and beautiful and expressive photography.  With its remarkable attention to detail, the film vividly evokes each of the three decades in which it is set, and what it is particularly good at reflecting are the moods of an ever-changing world.  The recreation of the porcelain works is particularly impressive, giving an insight into how ceramics were manufactured at that time and the conditions workers had to endure in the first few decades of the Twentieth Century.  The film also makes some poignant statements about the futility of ambition and the importance of love in achieving personal fulfilment, although such messages are diluted by the film's scale and languid pace.

The film's most noticeable weakness  is that there is a distinct lack of passion and emotion throughout the film, and as a result it quickly becomes monotonous.  Part of the problem is the film's length - three hours really is too long to sustain a cinema audience's attention for this kind of film.  However, the main problem is that none of the actors in the film appears capable of showing genuine emotion or a convincing reaction to the events happening around them.   Both of the lead actors, Charles Berling and Emmanuelle Béart, give competent but almost totally bland performances, doing little to form any kind of attachment with their audience.  The other star actor, Isabelle Huppert, scarcely has the opportunity to make her presence felt.

In religiously trying to avoid the kind of excessive sentimentality that has ruined many a good period drama, Asseyas appears to have gone far too far towards the opposite extreme, and created a film which is almost bereft of any human emotion.  So, whilst, technically, Les Destinées sentimentales is very nearly a masterpiece, as an engaging and rewarding piece of cinema it is much less satisfactory...

Film Synopsis

Jean Barnery is the pastor of a small village in Charente,  Shortly after separating from his wife Nathalie, he meets Pauline, the daughter of one of his parishioners who runs a cognac distillery.  Jean and Pauline marry and retreat to an alpine village where they live happily for a few years.  Learning of the death of his uncle, Jean decides to take charge of the family porcelain business in Limoges.  His has great ambitions, but the world is changing fast, with war and economic disaster just around the corner...