Camille 2000 (1969)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Radley Metzger

Writers:

Alexandre Dumas fils (novel) and
Michael DeForrest (writer)

Release Date:

13 November 1975 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

The "now" child

Plot:

Marguerite, a beautiful woman of affairs, falls for the young and promising Armand, but sacrifices her...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Female Nudity | Dream Like | Nudity | Group Sex

Cast

Danièle Gaubert	...	Marguerite Gautier
Nino Castelnuovo	...	Armand Duval
Eleonora Rossi Drago	...	Prudence
Roberto Bisacco	...	Gastion
Massimo Serato	...	Armand's father
Silvana Venturelli	...	Olympe
Zachary Adams	...	Gody
Dominique Badou
Peter Chatel
Virginia Rodin
Enzo Fiermonte
Graziella Galvani
Philippe Forquet	...	De Varville

Also Known As:

Forbidden Love (Philippines: English title)

Runtime:

USA:115 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

English

Color:

Color (3-strip Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:R (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | Australia:M | USA:X | Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Casina Valadier, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Spear Productions

Movie Connections:

Edited into Grindhouse Universe (2008) (V)

Stunning and refreshing version of Dumas' novel

This is a superb film, witty, stylish, and beautifully conceived and executed. One of the things I love most about Metzger's work is the way he takes classic literature--in this case Dumas' "The Lady of the Camellias"-- and reworks them for a modern audience. Earlier renditions of this story--such as Cukor's 1936 film starring Greta Garbo, "La Traviata," and seven silent movie versions--were unable to depict the life of a courtesan with such frankness, showing what is after all one of the main aspects of a courtesan's life: her moments in the bedroom. The film, while intensely erotic, is also very much about love. The lovers want to look at one another and experience moments of wonderment at the sheer existence of the other more than they want to do bedroom antics. They are young and beautiful, and their beauty as well as her illness makes us feel achingly the fleetingness of love and youth. Moreover, the joy of youth and the erotic play out in every aspect of the film. The stylish sets and costumes, the lush party scenes, and the sensual music depict a world of pleasure-loving children who never want to grow up, but want to continue enveloping themselves in brightly-colored adult playgrounds full of sensory stimulation. The stigma normally associated with a courtesan is stripped away in this world of pleasure, in which life lived to its fullest is the ultimate goal, and an early death is a small price to pay. In this sense the parallel to some of the concerns of the swinging sixties is brilliantly captured. A 1969 review from Roger Ebert disappointingly puts down this movie, and yet Ebert's own script for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" is no more than a crass joke, with no feeling for the humanity of its characters or for the dignity of love, sex, or even life. He ridicules the moment when Camille is breathing heavily, not understanding that the depiction of female pleasure on the screen was so necessary to our understanding of the heroine's journey.