Themes: Star-Crossed Lovers, Crumbling Marriages, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: Emmanuelle Béart, Charles Berling, Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Perrier, Dominique Reymond
Release Year: 2000
Country: FR/CH
Run Time: 180 minutes
Plot
Acclaimed French filmmaker Olivier Assayas follows up on the international success of Fin Août, Début Septembre and Irma Vep with this sweeping adaptation of the sprawling three-volume tome by Jacques Chardonne. Set in three chapters spanning from the beginning of the 1900s to after WWI, the first section takes place in the fictional village of Barbazac, located in the Cognac region. Protestant pastor Jean Barnery (Charles Berling) learns of his wife Nathalie's (Isabelle Huppert) infidelity from the village grapevine and sends his daughter away. At the same time, 20-year-old Pauline (Emmanuelle Beart) returns to the village after the death of her father. Pauline and Jean are almost immediately attracted to each other when they first meet at a ball. Soon Jean installs Nathalie and their daughter in an apartment, files for divorce, and resigns as minister. The second chapter opens with Pauline visiting Jean, who is bedridden in a Parisian hotel from tuberculosis. Upon his recovery, they marry and live for a spell in Switzerland, until Jean's family entreat him to return to Limoges and take over the floundering family porcelain business. The final chapter opens with bombs of WWI: Jean is sent to the front, while Pauline works as a nurse. When the war finally draws to a close, Jean struggles to keep the business afloat. He raises the ire of his workers and stockholders alike by freezing wages and slashing dividends, but his fastidious attention to detail soon makes his company the finest producer of porcelain in Europe. Yet as the economic climate of the continent slowly worsens, so does his business -- and his health. This film was first screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review
This languid, sprawling period drama represents a change of pace from director Olivier Assayas' usual, ultra-contemporary subject matter, but retains the auteur's emphasis on long-suffering romance presented in a uniquely modern, resolutely unsentimental style. For much of its first hour, Destinees shunts from character to character before finding its momentum with the central relationship between priggish heir Jean (Charles Berling) and his luminous new bride, Pauline (Emmanuelle Béart). While the passion quotient is understandably low, Béart manages to suggest a reserve of hope and understanding; frustrated by her husband at every turn, she remains true to him, even as Assayas' interpretation slyly insinuates that Jean is not worth her time. In this respect, Assayas' strengths as a "woman's director" work against Destinees' complex rise-and-fall-of-the-family-business subplot, which never engages on an emotional level. Much like Jean himself, the film seems to peter out in its last third, but throughout, Assayas seems determined to keep the material relevant, incorporating raw bursts of emotion and even some cinéma vérité stylization into what is by and large a sumptuous costume drama. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
André Marcon - Paul Desca; Alexandra London - Louise Desca; Julie Depardieu - Marcelle; Valérie Bonneton; Didier Flamand; Jean-Baptiste Malartre; Catherine Mouchet; Mia Hansen-Løve; Sophie Aubry; Victor Garrivier; Mathieu Genet
