Die Treue der Frauen

Billed as a highlight of this year's Martell French Film tour of the UK, Fidelity runs for slightly over three hours. But despite its length, it tackles far too much. I could list off a dozen themes from it but it's hard enough making this readable. I liked Sophie Marceau and Pascal Greggory but characterisation is not a strong point of this film.

La Fidélité's ambitions, some of its subject matter, and the fact that it's three hours long, are a bit like another recent French film, Pola X. That film was even more over the top and over-reaching. Also, it didn't have Sophie Marceau, and it was, frankly, mad. So arguably Pola X was a worse flop than this film, but it had visual imagination. Which went a long way, and left me feeling less conned than I did after three hours of this.

It seemed almost impossible to come; "La Fidelite" shows that not everything is lost yet, in the times of award-winning stupidity. It's a great achievement: you can see our real world (somewhat surreally shown), and in the same time you watch AND understand AND feel what's most deep and most important...... see the picture, I kindly ask everyone.

Thanks for Mr Zulawski, Ms Marceau, Mr Korzynski.

Intriguing that Sophie Marceau should make a film about fidelity under the direction of Zulawski (" Crazy love* "), her companion for more than fifteen years. But this is just one aspect of a baroque and flamboyant film which evokes the gutter press and organ trafficking to bring up to date a literary classic, "The princess of Cleves ". Torn between her oath not to deceive her husband and her desire for a suicidal young photographer, Sophie Marceau finds herself in one of her best roles.

* with Sophie Marceau, Francis Huster and Tcheky Karyo.

Zulawski's 'La Fidélité' is one imbalanced film. The plot is very contrived. It tries to tackle too many things at once but does not quite succeed in spite of the almost 3 hour length. The characters lack dimension (and are hardly interesting). I was irritated by the explicit male nudity (which was more than female nudity). The sex scenes looked unconvincing and a little vulgar, as if they were just thrown in the movie randomly, giving it a pretentious look. The story lacks a distinct direction. Yet, somehow, something about it kept me watching till the end and after the closing credits have rolled, I didn't feel disappointed (by the fact that I spent three hours watching the film) nor was I particularly satisfied. By no means, is this a great film but it is shot quite beautifully. The photography and cinematography are excellent. Some of the images have been so wonderfully and artistically shot and brought on screen. I liked how beautifully the relationship between Clelia and her mother (played by the fabulous Magali Noël) was portrayed and how Clelia's obsession with photographing everything reflects her own life. Sophie Marceau does very well, carrying the film, in spite of having a weakly written character. Guillaume Canet is okay and Pascal Gregory is awful. Perhaps Zulawski wanted to present the film like a photograph which captures a moment but tells a lot about the surrounding time period. He doesn't succeed though. For me, it's one of those films that I wouldn't call great but I didn't mind watching either.

Another film based upon ' La Princesse de Cleves ' ( the version by Christophe Honore is the best ) and it is one of the more watchable of Zulawski's output. Sophie Marceau gives a decent performance but no more than that, and the other actors who stand out are Edith Scob and the incredibly good Magali Noel. For those who do not know them look them up!! The male actors are passable so really the full weight of the film depends more or less on the direction. I cannot say I am a great fan of Zulawski and despite the so-called sexual frankness of his films I still feel a clinging odour of Catholic belief or non-belief in his films. Good is good etc and bad is bad and the monster of sexuality in his most known work ' Possession ' gets brief showings here. I want to avoid spoilers but I did not believe in her relationship with her husband played by Pascal Greggory and nothing conveyed a real passion between them. Greggory can be very capable as an actor, but not here. Overall it is a superficial film and despite Zulawski's attempts at profundity I have repeatedly seen him fail. The worst example was the woefully bad ' L'amour Braque ' based again loosely on another literary source Dostoyevsky's ' The Idiot '. Not a good film, but neither is it unwatchable. Despite outcries from one reviewer I did not see one penis, and the sexuality in the film was well below zero in temperature.