Amazon.com video review:
François Truffaut's dramatization of the true story of Adele
Hugo,
the daughter of French author-in-exile Victor Hugo, and her romantic
obsession with a young French officer is a cinematically beautiful and
emotionally wrenching portrait of a headstrong but unstable young woman.
Adele (Isabelle Adjani, whose pale face gives her the quality of a cameo
portrait) travels under a false name and spins a half-dozen false stories
about herself and her relationship to Lieutenant Pinson (Bruce Robinson),
the Hussar
she follows to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Pinson no longer loves her, but she
refuses to accept his rejection. Sinking farther and farther into her own
internal world, she passes herself off as his wife and pours out her stormy
emotions into a personal journal filled with delusional descriptions of her
fantasy life. Beautifully shot by Nestor Almendros in vivid color,
Truffaut's re-creation of the 1860s is accomplished not merely in
impressive
sets and locations but in the very style of the film: narration and
voiceovers,
written journal entries and letters, journeys and locations established
with
map reproductions, and a judicious use of stills mix old-fashioned
cinematic
technique with poetic flourishes. The result is one of Truffaut's most
haunting portraits, all the more powerful because it's true. --Sean
Axmaker
