Scola's Nuit de Varennes is a wonderfully composed and compact ... well, drama might be a misleading description, unless it's drama of ideologies. The concept itself is nothing short of brilliant: in 1791, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to flee France and the revolution. They get to the the small town of Varennes, just a few miles shy of the border, where they are arrested and led back to Paris, later to be guillotined.
However, we are not in the royal getaway coach, but in the periphery of the historical drama; in the coach following the doomed royals is a strange melange of ideologies, a motley and cosmopolitan crew of aspects of the world that is about to disappear and that which is soon to come. The new ideology is represented by Thomas Paine (Harvey Keitel) and writer Restif (Jean-Louis Barrault), the ancien regime by Countess de la Borde (Hanna Schygulla), carrying with her Louis XVI's royal parade robe. Marcello Mastroianni portrays an eclipsed and impotent Casanova and Daniel Gelin is De Wende, an unscrupulous entrepreneur who is sure to survive both the revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic wars with his fortune intact.
The very idea of letting the soul of a historical period be represented by characters that, put together, cover all aspects of the matter, is reminiscent of Blixen's (or Isak Dinesen's) tales, such as "The Deluge of Norderney", "The Dreamers" or "The Heroine".
It's expertly done in this beautifully executed film. The scenery, the dialogue and the acting are all masterly. The story loyally refuses to play favorites. The revolution is justified by the sufferings of the people of France, but the children of the revolution - partly represented by a young, hateful and self-righteous student who insults Casanova - have no sense of the noblesse and chivalry they destroy. We clearly sense how the revolution will readily lapse into the mindless brutality of the reign of terror that was shortly to follow. The sympathy that arises across the revolutionary gulf between the royalist Baroness and the modern Thomas Paine is among the most touching things in the film which culminates in Varennes after the collapse of royal power with Schygulla's Baroness kneeling before the royal robes on a dress maker's dummy.
However, we are not in the royal getaway coach, but in the periphery of the historical drama; in the coach following the doomed royals is a strange melange of ideologies, a motley and cosmopolitan crew of aspects of the world that is about to disappear and that which is soon to come. The new ideology is represented by Thomas Paine (Harvey Keitel) and writer Restif (Jean-Louis Barrault), the ancien regime by Countess de la Borde (Hanna Schygulla), carrying with her Louis XVI's royal parade robe. Marcello Mastroianni portrays an eclipsed and impotent Casanova and Daniel Gelin is De Wende, an unscrupulous entrepreneur who is sure to survive both the revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic wars with his fortune intact.
The very idea of letting the soul of a historical period be represented by characters that, put together, cover all aspects of the matter, is reminiscent of Blixen's (or Isak Dinesen's) tales, such as "The Deluge of Norderney", "The Dreamers" or "The Heroine".
It's expertly done in this beautifully executed film. The scenery, the dialogue and the acting are all masterly. The story loyally refuses to play favorites. The revolution is justified by the sufferings of the people of France, but the children of the revolution - partly represented by a young, hateful and self-righteous student who insults Casanova - have no sense of the noblesse and chivalry they destroy. We clearly sense how the revolution will readily lapse into the mindless brutality of the reign of terror that was shortly to follow. The sympathy that arises across the revolutionary gulf between the royalist Baroness and the modern Thomas Paine is among the most touching things in the film which culminates in Varennes after the collapse of royal power with Schygulla's Baroness kneeling before the royal robes on a dress maker's dummy.