Le affinità elettive

"Elective Affinities," even though it stars one of my favorite actresses, Isabelle Huppert, is a terrible film. Why? The secenario is so routine that they even use the equation-symbol (i.e. A is attracted to B, while C is attracted to D., etc.) to prophesize what is about to occur, and (viola!) it does just that. A woman (I.H.) engages her lover of 20 years ago and they become married (I think that very day). They setttle in on his estate and then the husband's friend arrives for a visit, at almost the same time the women's nubile daughter arrives from college. Can you guess the rest? It's a spaghetti romance; shame on Isabelle Huppert for this one.

In the Eighteenth Century, in Italy, the Countess Carlotta (Isabelle Huppert) meets occasionally the Baron Eduardo (Jean-Hughes Anglad). They has a crush for each other in the past, when they were young, and they decide to get married very soon. One year after, Eduardo decides to invite his friend, the architect Ottone (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) to stay with them and help them to improve their property. Then, Carlotta decides to invite her goddaughter Ottilia (Marie Gillain) to stay also with them to make company to Ottone. Carlotta feels attracted by Ottone, and Eduardo falls in love with Ottilia. These attractions lead the four central characters to an affair with tragic consequences. This romance is very strange. It is about infidelity, in a very different world in Italy in the 18th Century . Although those things of love are very unpredictable, it sounds very strange that a couple like Eduardo and Carlotta, newlywed and in love for each other, have this type of affair proposed in the film. I myself have not bought the story. The direction and performances are impeccable, but the story has not convinced me. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): `As Afinidades Eletivas' (`The Elective Affinities')

Reviewers seem to have struggled with this dramatisation of a sometimes quite modern German novel that came out in 1809, the action being moved from Saxony to a gloriously picturesque Tuscany. I think the problems start with the book, where you have to decide for yourself how serious it is meant to be.

Is the author moving his characters around the chessboard for fun, so we can laugh at their foibles, or is he in deadly earnest about the destructive effects of our strongest emotions? Or should we see a bit of both, enjoying some of the comedy in the initial conflicts of love and duty (to name just two) but deeply sorry at the end over lives lost or blighted? It is a complex work of many layers, too many to discuss here.

A film can only show elements of the story and has to leave out much. Rightly, in my view, it is centred on the basic equation of the middle- aged couple A and B inviting into their quiet lives the unmarried C and D. Sticking to the human trajectory, that goes from innocent love through forbidden love to tragic deaths, it can only hint at or has to ignore many other aspects of the novel: social, cultural, scientific, religious and philosophical.

Perhaps this is why some viewers have not felt satisfied? Is there an appetite for doomed love affairs among rich people in Europe two hundred years ago? I suggest that there will always be if, like this one, they are well told, well cast and well shot (even though the baby's red wig was a bit over the top!).

Taviani brothers are extremely talented filmmakers, and every movie they make is worth seeing. "Elective affinities" is a wonderful film. Based on a novel by Goethe it shows us how human lives are unable to match mathematic formulas. Tavianis direct the film with amazing simplicity and preciseness, with very few flaws. It is unlike their Italian films, but the art of those wonderful brothers is breathtaking. My Grade: **** 1/2 (out of *****)

Much criticism is possible for this one, see the other reviews. I agree with them , partially, but am no expert on scripts, etc. I will summarize the positive aspects. This is a "period piece"as so many have been made, especially in Europe. (Italy , France). As such, not much wrong with it. Being based on an 18th century novel by the famous J.W. Goethe, of course in mentality it is far away from our present times. Young people, only familiar with modern consumer cinema (Hollywood et al.) will be apalled by this kind of movie. But me, very used to, and grown up with the cinema of the likes of Luchino Visconti, were not surprised with child drowning, hysterical women, "strange relationships". It partly reminded me of L'Innocente by Visconti. Those were different times! No, I loved it, good story, great acting, especially my favorite Isabelle Huppert, good locations, a nice film.

I don't care about state subsidies or whatever, as long as it results in some movie. Culture has to be subsidized anyway, the (mass) market mechanism, under capitalist relations, cannot supply it.