Themes: Haunted By the Past, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Julie Delpy, Nils Tavernier, Monique Chaumette, Robert Dhéry
Release Year: 1987
Country: FR/IT
Run Time: 132 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
In this 1987 film, director Bertrand Tavernier depicts French life in the Middle Ages as dreary, unromantic, and brutal. The story begins when a warrior leaves home to fight in the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) between France and England. Before his departure, he gives his young son, François, a sword to safeguard his mother and her virtue. One day, after the boy opens a bedroom door to find his mother willingly submitting to a man, he uses the sword to kill the man and becomes traumatized with guilt and enmity toward his mother. Years later, François (Bernard Pierre Donnadieu) must go off to war as a chevalier, or knight. While he is away, his daughter, the gentle and loving Béatrice (Julie Delpy), sees to the needs of her little brother and her feckless mother. Although the castle in which they live is a sepulcher of shadows and stone, Béatrice maintains her spirits as she looks forward to the day when her father's voice will once again echo in the corridors. After four years of war in which he was held captive for a time by the English, he returns to the castle, a hardened warrior who has renounced God. Inside his twisted mind, he still carries the memory of that terrible day long ago, the day he discovered his mother was an adulteress. Giving the demons within him free rein, he begins to abuse everyone around him: He insults, bullies, and pillages the local village. He even forces his son Nils Tavernier to wear women's clothes and become the prey in a hunt. As he descends deeper into depravity, it is innocent Béatrice who suffers the most. Whether he has completely destroyed her, or whether she will rise up and destroy him, becomes the central focus of the film as it moves toward its conclusion. The dialogue is in French with English subtitles. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
Review
Unlike most other films that depict the age of chivalry as a time of romance, gallantry, and high adventure, La Passion de Béatrice depicts it as an age of psychological dysfunction, domestic violence, and ennui. Set in and around a dreary castle in 14th century France, the motion picture centers on the wretchedness of medieval life as experienced by the Cortmart family. The leading actors -- Bernard Pierre Donnadieu as François, Julie Delpy as Béatrice, and Nils Tavernier as Arnaud, François' son -- perform competently. Delpy, about 18 at the time of the filming, is especially good as the saintly, long-suffering Béatrice. In addition, the cinematography captures the look and feel of the age as it tags along on horseback or follows Béatrice down steep castle steps and through gloomy corridors. But director Tavernier shocked audiences -- and some critics -- with his graphic depiction of violence. Rather than suggesting or implying violence, he presents the full horror of it, including the rape of Béatrice, a teenager, and the sadistic maltreatment of Arnaud. Perhaps for this reason, La Passion de Béatrice is among the least successful and least well-known of Tavernier's films. In at least one area, however, the motion picture impressed the film community, earning it the 1988 César Award (the French equivalent of an Academy Award) for Best Costume Design. The dialogue is in French with English subtitles. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
