THE MARQUISE OF O Movie Review

During the Franco-Prussian War, a lovely young Italian widow (Edith Clever) is saved by a gallant Russian soldier (Bruno Ganz) from an impending rape. Yet months later, she is alarmed—and utterly puzzled—to find herself pregnant. Eric Rohmer's elegantly reserved and wonderfully witty adaptation of an 18th-century novella by Heinrich von Kleist has the narrative quality of a classic fable and the charming visual style (thanks to cinematographer Nestor Almendros) of a series of living, period tableaux. Created by Rohmer after completing Chloe in the Afternoon, the final film in his Six Moral Tales cycle, The Marquise of ? looks at first glance like a major departure from the contemporary romantic comedies he had become famous for. But though the century, clothes, and customs are different (as is the language—these characters speak German), Rohmer's wonderfully confused, deeply romantic characters are not all that different on the inside from those we'd meet in one of his films set in a Paris suburb or a resort in the south of France. (With luck, video versions will capture Almendros's dark and velvety color scheme, which is one of the film's great pleasures.)

NEXT STOP … Claire's Knee, The Aviator's Wife, The Magic Flute

1976 102m/C FR GE Edith Clever, Bruno Ganz, Peter Luhr, Edda Seipel, Otto Sander, Ruth Drexel; D: Eric Rohmer; W: Eric Rohmer; C: Nestor Almendros. NYR