Lady Chatterley

I think DH Lawrence would be proud of this film...Pascale Ferran transformed this story we all imagine as an erotic cliché in a very sensible and sensitive movie. Because Lady Chatterley is not the story of a more or less sex-addict bourgeoise we have seen in so many rubbish erotic movies, inspired by the novel. It is much more about a woman who discovers the materiality of world threw a love story. She discovers also that "some people are not naturally made to command others" and in a way her love story with Parkin is a truly waking up to other people and life around her. She discovers her body and the world of the first industrial revolution has it used to be: unfair and unequal. Lady Chatterlay is not only an erotic story but also a very politic and subversive one. DH Lawrence is well known for being very critical about the British society of 1920's and the human side-effects of industrial development. Pascal Ferran perfectly understood the deep meaning of the novel. Moreover, she transmuted those ideas in a very french movie (but in fact the best french author cinema). The way she has filmed the two characters is very intimate but never silly, and that's a great achievement! In a way, her style is very closed to Piala's one. Harsh and poetic at the same time, precise and evocative, sensible and sensitive. This film is very precious!

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.

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.

"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.

DH Lawrence's novels may be tough to translate to the screen, so much of his writing is dependent on the words on the page as they form images of extraordinary beauty and sensuality. His novels are quintessentially British and reflect on the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization, confronting issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality, and human instinct. During his lifetime he was even labeled a pornographer, but that was then and now is now, and under the gifted guidance of director/writer (with Roger Bohbot and Pierre Trividic) Pascale Ferran, Lawrence's exquisite tale of sexual awakening has found what for this viewer is the finest transition of the novel to the screen.

The place is England after WW I and Sir Clifford Chatterley (Hippolyte Girardot) is the paraplegic wealthy husband of Constance/Lady Chatterley (a radiant Marina Hands). Quite apropos for the era, Constance tends to her impotent husband, does needlepoint, and takes walks to while away her boredom. On one of her walks she encounters the gamekeeper Parkin (Jean-Louis Coullo'ch), seeing a partially nude man for the first time in her life. The impact awakens her somnolent sexuality and she manages to visit Parkin daily, gradually allowing her lust to unfold. Parkin is 'below her class' but is a masculine, sensuous embodiment of everything Constance has never experienced. They slowly bond and both of them become passionately in love, finding lovemaking in Parkin's hut, in the woods, in the rain - wherever they encounter. Constance wants to have a baby and convinces Clifford that she can become impregnated and the resulting child would be 'Clifford's' by pact. Constance travels to London, the Riviera, and other ports, only to return home believing that Parkin has reclaimed his ex-wife. But there are many surprises that greet her and the manner in which the story resolves (in Ferran's hands) leaves us unsure of the future.

The film is captured amidst the beauties of the natural world - flowers, trees, springs, brooks - and these aspects of the natural world are an influential part of Constance's sexual awakening. Yes, there are scenes of complete nudity and love making but they are photographed so well by Julian Hirsch that they become an integral part of the story. The musical score by Béatrice Thiriet finds the right quality of elegance and sensuality. If there is a problem with this nearly three-hour film it is in the editing by Yann Dedet and Mathilde Muyard that takes liberties with scene transitions that prove disruptive.

But it would be hard to imagine two actors who could match the subtlety and sexual tension that Marina Hands and Jean-Louis Coullo'ch to this film. It is breathtakingly beautiful to experience DH Lawrence's story in the hands of the French crew and cast. Grady Harp