Lady Chatterley

"Lady Chatterley" is a tale of repression, lust and sexual liberation set in post-World War I France. Despite its title, the movie isn't an adaptation of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," the taboo-shattering D.H. Lawrence novel that scandalized the world when it was published in 1928. The film is actually based on a Lawrence work entitled "John Thomas and Lady Jane" that came out the previous year. But the theme and storyline are just about as erotic and provocative as what we find in its more famous successor.

This version features Marina Hands as the beautiful young wife of an aristocratic mine owner who's been rendered wheelchair-bound and impotent by injuries he sustained on the battlefield. Deprived of sex, Constance begins to fantasize about the husky gamekeeper who lives in the woods on the estate, and it's not long before the two of them have consummated their relationship. Jean Louis Coulloc'h is a particularly interesting casting choice as Parkin, for his scrappy features, thinning hair, linebacker's build and non-matinée-idol looks remove the story from the realm of dime-novel romance and into the arena of sheer physical attraction and lust. At least for awhile, that is, until the almost inevitable rush of feelings begins to overtake the couple, and the harsh realities of sexual mores, marital bonds and class distinctions that so define the era in which they live begin to make themselves felt.

Co-written by Roger Bohbot and director Pascale Ferran, the movie is long (two-hours-and-forty-one minutes, to be exact!), episodic and deliberately paced, but the lush setting, understated human drama and moving performances keep us riveted for the duration.

As you enter the cinema, I think there are several instructions certain viewers must first take heed of, as regards this film.

Firstly, face facts, it's French, so don't be surprised if there are hardly four lines of dialogue in the first thirty minutes. This works marvellously as an introduction into the repressed yet sensual world of the characters, but if you know you're likely to get bored without having everything immediately explained, then please save yourself the bother.

Secondly, it ain't all about the sex. If you're seeking XXXX thrills, again, don't bother.

Finally, Lady Chatterley is based upon the second (earlier) version of the book, NOT the famously explicit and more widely published rewrite Lawrence ultimately settled on. Don't be expecting the clunky politics that isn't very relevant in the 2000's, instead enjoy a tale of love and freedom, of hope that two very different people can become a reason for one another's happiness within this overbearing world we're all inevitably a part of.

As for the film itself, acting honours go to Marina Hands for an exquisite portrayal of Constance, truly from her performance every emotion can be felt without a hint of exaggeration. It's delightful stuff. Jean-Louis Coullo'ch's Parkin/gamekeeper is a good fit, for what really is the less starry role, and he handles everything, including a touching confessional scene, with an admirable strength and gentleness.

Underpinning everything is the lavish production, sound and photography to make an audience feel as part of the forest setting, a tranquillity that intimates so much of what the story is trying to say.

This is superb stuff.

Considering the giant steps taken by cinema since the sixties, it's been a long wait for the real Lady C on her way to the big screen. Prurient or bland have been the previous attempts: Japan and Italy have had goes, Sylvia "Emmanuelle" Kristel starred predictably enough in a strictly 'B' version, and Ken Russell, who had had success with 'Women In Love', directed an out-of-character watered-down serial for television.

As it's a woman's story, it makes sense for a woman to direct it, and even more, to make a success of it. Ferran has taken an unknown, or forgotten earlier version of the novel, "John Thomas and Lady Jane" as the basis of her film.

It has been described as being less polemical than the final version, but it works well, in emphasising how active Constance Chatterley was in her striving for a better life, and in showing how she came to identify herself with the socialist struggle. In 1959, during the Penguin Books/Chatterley obscenity trial, it was infamously asked if this was the kind of book one would wish one's wife or servants to read. That has always been good for a laugh, if it was only about sex - but it was political. Sex and politics: a combination we now take for granted, but despite the few years since female emancipation, the combination was yet unthinkably hairy for the Fifties.

The novel itself was excessively wordy, often risibly so, with Lawrence's male-oriented phallus-worshipping view of the world to the fore. When the gamekeeper Parkin (Jean-Louis Coilloc'h, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Brando in 'Streetcar') reveals to Lady C, his worries about being too sensitive and perhaps too womanly, we hear the author's voice. By adding capitals to every part of the story, the director has made a film that could easily be followed as a silent: 'The House', The Forest', The Cabin', The Miners'…But replacing words with action, especially in the sex scenes, allows the intimacy and passion to live on, without the anachronistic wordplay and modes of speech which now distance us from the lovers. Plenty of time, too, is given to watching a girlishly clumsy Constance (Marina Hands) explore the forests and streams surrounding the House; also to the contrast with her bucolic little paradise when she is driven into town and sits in her car, her gaze lingering on more 'real men' as they emerge, begrimed, from the mine. Such a contrast, made in such visual terms, remains in the air when Sir Clifford (Hippolyte Girardot) jokes about the miners striking every winter, and Connie doesn't laugh. It's important to remember that the airs and graces put on by upper-class married couples were partly to avoid losing face in front of the servants; Sir Clifford is not the only stiff and distant husband in his world, and the supporting of attitudes and beliefs by corsets and tweeds was aped by the aspiring middle classes (as in 'Brief Encounter') until wars, jazz, rock 'n' roll, 'certain books' and the satire boom moved the concentration of gravity to The Whitehouse, Saudi Arabia and the Taliban's favourite cave.

The problem of getting a whole novel on-screen concurrently with a film in its own right has been solved by the use of intertitles, the director doing a voice-over; and the Lady's trip to France has been slotted in as a home movie, while Parkin's misadventures back home are covered in a letter from Sir Clifford's nurse (Anne Benoit), who tells it straight to camera. These changes in texture help to keep the pace up in this quite long film, just as earlier cuts are often a tranquil old-fashioned 'fade to black', to denote the passing of time.

Again; the scenes of intimacy are well told: they are acted and filmed in a manner which fools us into believing we are flies on the wall. There is no concentration on the 'plumbing' as there is with too much on-screen sex, and just a few fully-clothed scenes, a few words and minimal choreography are all it needs to put over the spirit of the novel, the return to the garden and the grace and honest beauty of making love.

I have seen the BBC adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel made by Ken Russell with Joely Richardson and Sean Bean and there is no comparison: I prefer the French adaptation even if the film is not always faithful to the book on some points (for example, in the book, Sir Clifford is having problems with his miners and his employees because he is very arrogant but in the film, Pascale Ferran does not mention these problems). The actors are maybe a little more good-looking in the BBC version but that's about it (sorry, Sean Bean). And if you want to see a film about a beautiful but bored, aristocratic woman whose sensuality is suddenly re-awakened by her meeting with the sullen, unsociable but virile Parkin/Mellors, then this film is for you. Pascale Ferran seemed to have focused her film on the love-story between Lady Constance/Connie and Parkin, the gamekeeper and the discovery or re-discovery of one's senses. That is why you have beautiful shots of nature, of magnificent trees in spring and why you have many scenes in which Constance is walking in the forest and just listening to the songs of birds. The forest is also the place where she discovers her own sensuality. The actors are brilliant, they magnificently show all sorts of emotions on their faces and the love-making scenes are all made with much reserve, with subtlety...It is all refined and very beautifully-done. I loved this Connie, I could relate to her and I loved the long pauses and the looks between the two leads, the big shots on the hands, on some legs or other parts of the body and some refined clothes. The costumes are also important. This movie reminds me a little of some scenes of The Piano by Jane Campion and if you enjoyed The Piano, I am sure you will like this French adaptation. Definitely a 'must-see'. It is a little long, more than 2 hours and a half, I think but if you are used to watching long BBC period dramas like me, you will have no fear in watching this!

This version of the often-shot story of Lady Chatterley is in French with English subtitles, and I found the "look" of many of the actors to be decidedly French (big surprise) rather than English. The plot development was decidedly leisurely in the first half of the film, but this was not a game-breaker as far as my enjoyment of the movie. However, compared to all the other versions on this story that I've seen, I found this French effort to bring an element of earthy realism (best way I can describe it) to the story that the others lacked. The scene where the gamekeeper and Lady Chatterley "decorate" each other with flowers and subsequently disport themselves outside in the field and woods is a particularly interesting and memorable sequence. One minor quibble: the film seemed to both begin and end rather abruptly...you'll know what I mean when you watch it.