Les enfants du siècle

I saw this film in French with Spanish subtitles so I had to read very fast! The photography is beautiful. I had not seen either of the principal actors before but I will look for them again. Miss Binoche made George Sand a real person not just an odd woman! The actor who played Alfred de Musset, showed him as charming but weak, very well done.

"Enfants du siècle" does'nt really mean "Children of the Century", as for the contemporaries it was obvious that it meant "Heirs of the Napoleonic Saga".

This generation, Hugo, Dumas,, Musset, Nerval, Lamartine and Vigny was obsessed by the sad perception that they could not lead the heroïc, larger than life existence experienced by their fathers during the Revolution and Empire - a period (or shortly thereafter) during which they were born. They - and Aurore Dupin de Francueil (aka George Sand) with them - sought vicariously to find fame and glory in literature, particularly in theatre which was the « 7th art » of those days, and in forms of "original living" which would not surprise those reading now on the antics of 'world famous' people. In those days, that was called « Romantism ».

All of them succeeded in literature; but - even though in those days novels, essays, tales, and poems were keenly read - theatre was the big thing: a kind of Hollywood on Seine! And the successful theatre writers and performers had a fame akin to that of our Hollywood stars of today.

So this film should be seen as the biopic of two larger than life "Hollywood stars".

No surprise that passions, drugs, unfaithfulnesses and manifestations of an enormous ego are sprinkled liberally in this film. One may think of the Burton and Taylor duet, but with a wittier and more intellectual bent.

Musset, fabulously talented, has left immortal poems and several theatre pieces which have been rediscovered in the XXth century and which will last; but he has sadly wasted his talent in alcohol (absinthe mainly), drugs and philandering, prostitutes included; he died at 47.

Sand has been the more resilient of the two. She died at 71, a busy grandmother fond of country life, a true precursor of the cause of women's freedom in terms of choosing her (sometimes Saphic) lovers, espousing political causes, and communing with nature.

Sand's "original" life is her real masterpiece; it has a very modern tone. Her writings are numerous and charming, but for me, the literary genius of the two is Musset: most of his writings are masterpieces, even though his life has been a shambles.

It is no surprise then that Diane Kurys takes Sand as her lead character, against a despondent and weak Musset. And I quite understand why - to some reviewers - they both appear boorish, selfish and inspiring few sympathy. But - keeping in mind that Musset and Sand ooze talent and are their generation's Hollywood superstars - you may enjoy this well crafted biopic.

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I loved this movie and I don't know to what extent this movie is near to the original story. I have read the life of George Sand and was amazed by her character. A character so tough when it has to do with freedom of doing what one wants. George Sand was one of my best female characters next to Mary Wolstoncroft, Jane Austin, Emmeline Pankhurst and the famous five. Juliette Binoche has played the role magnificently close and made it feel like I was watching the original Sand.

The love story is so beautiful specially the scene when Benoit Magimel sleeps on the street ground under the rain when Sand comes to visit him in her carriage. Waw!... I mean this is a charming scene, it says a lot about the feelings of love.

Being French, I saw this film at its release. I had no idea about what I might find except that Juliette Binoche was in it. I went there alone. I came out in a crowd.

Romanticism isn't what we think it is. This story IS romantic, not because it's a love story, but because it's a Romantics's story. George Sand and Alfred de Musset were two of our greatest writers. Their works were full of hope, of despair, of melancholy and bitterness. They were revolutionaries. This film is all about the atmosphere of that time, all about the fights and ambitions of these young writers who wanted to change the world and find an unclear future.

This film is one of the few that changed my life, not because of the way it was filmed, or the performance of the actors (though they were absolutely fabulous and I'm looking forward to their next films), it changed my perception of life, made me read some Romantic works (by Sand, Musset, Hugo, Lamartine,... and that's only for the French ones) where I found a "translation" of what I feel when I look to the world in front of me.

That's what this film is all about. It's not a film about a past true story, it's about all of us, everyday.

I was really hoping to find some special quality in the two main characters that I could like. However, self absorbed people are usually too melodramatic about every single aspect of their lives and so I had no sympathy for their predicament at all. So, I settled back and enjoyed Julliet Binochet at work. The film was meticulously crafted and the settings and costumes were wonderful, so I got the time machine effect, too. If you like historical melodrama, you might enjoy this.