BÉATRICE Movie Review

La Passion Béatrice

In the Middle Ages, young Béatrice (Julie Delpy) has been pining for the return of her father (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) who was taken prisoner by the English while fighting the Crusades. When dad returns, however, he instigates a reign of domestic terror with a puzzled and shattered Béatrice as his primary target. This elaborate and effectively claustrophobic period drama from Bertrand Tavernier is like a variation on The Stepfather as directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The reasons for the father's cruelty—including his wife's infidelity while he was away fighting the good fight—are alluded to throughout, yet there is still an undeniably creepy core of almost instinctive familial abuse running through the film. One of the least-known and least characteristic of the many superb movies by Tavernier, Béatrice (a.k.a. La Passion Béatrice) features a really scary performance by Donnadieu as the dad from hell, and a remarkably nuanced one from the very young Julie Delpy. A one-of-a-kind, unclassifiable historical epic, Béatrice will get under your skin and stay there.

NEXT STOP … Life and Nothing But, The Judge and the Assassin, Lancelot of the Lake

1988 (R) 132m/C FR Julie Delpy, Barnard Pierre Donnadieu, Nils Tavernier; D: Bertrand Tavernier; W: Colo Tavernier O'Hagan; C: Bruno de Keyzer; M: Lili Boulanger. Cesar Awards ‘88: Best Costume Design. VHS, LV NO