The place called "La Cloche des bois" is the scene of clashes and passions between actors, smugglers and teenagers.
Dominique Sanda had been approached for India Song (M. Duras). She had come a long way since her revelation at 17 in A gentle woman (1968) from Bresson and had become a big star, especially in Italy. When she arrived for an interview with Duras and Jacquot she was, according to him, literally afraid to see them at the end of the corridor watching her moving forward! They barely exchanged a few words and she did not respond. Yet Jacquot was going to live, a little later, eight years with her and directing her three times (The Wings of the Dove, 1980; Body and Property, 1985 and The Beggars, 1987), Three Literary Adaptations, by Henry James, James Gunn and Louis-René Des Forêts. These are for him the only three films of a decade in which he looks for himself, between personal and romantic expression, super-production and small budget. It was not Domiique Sanda, in any case, who could allow him to solve his acting problem. By his own admission, he had not been able to use either Anna Karina or Brigitte Fossey in her first two feature films. As for the face to face Isabelle Huppert /Dominique Sanda (The Wings of the dove), he could not master it. In particular, he was much too much in love with Dominique Sanda to make it play just right! Beautiful girl, aware of her charm, already a super-star when he was only a director at the beginning, she was actually a very poor actress, but had the chance to play, on her physical, in great films by Bertolucci, De Sica, Baldi, Cavani and Visconti. She even received an interpretation prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival for L'Eredita Ferramonti (L'Héritage, Mauro Bolognini), which is an aberration, because at that time, all Italian films were post-synchronized and this So it's not her voice, neither here, nor at Visconti's or Bertolucci's. In fact she played or white or fake, which had to be perfectly suited to Robert Bresson.
The film The Beggars after the eponymous novel by Louis-René des Forêts, is built like a puzzle.
After working on the Angélique series, Benoit Jacquot becomes the assistant director of Marguerite Duras. In 1987, he shot the film he considered to be his first real feature film: The Beggars, based on the legendary novel by Louis-René Des Forêt. The film comes up against a semi-failure and the demoralized director meets the young Judith Godrèche. The latter seduces him and manages to convince him to turn The Disenchanted. The director then sets out to tell the stories of women fleeing their past.