From a relatively short novel (130 pages) ,the screenwriters made a 4h30 miniseries; many subplots were added : Brizac ,the evil planter , the smugglers , the old noble who woos Virginie ( although the letter she wrote hints at her aunt's plans) and plenty of filler such as the long exotic dance celebrating Marie's and Domingue's union , and a long nude scene where both heroes appear in their birthday's suit : Virginie's utter modesty ,which causes her death , is no longer a la mode in the seventies zeitgeist.
This saga could have been boiled down to a 3-hour work ,without suffering for it .
Filmed on Mauritius , with good actors ( Georges Marchal, Michèle Grellier) and an endearing couple of young performers :Veronique Jeannot would become very popular afterward and even was Alain Delon's co-star in "le toubib" ,a war melodrama.
Bernardin De Saint-Pierre 's novel ,published in 1788 ,one year before the Revolution , was influenced by Rousseau and praised the life close to nature ,for man is naturally good and society corrupts him ; by making a peasant and an aristocrat good friends together through a hard life (in spite of a paradise in which hell is present ) he broke the social barriers which did not exist anymore in a world outside the Ancien Régime society .
Although the writer denounced the slaves 'hell , never "Paul et Virginie" called the very principle of slavery into question ; it would take more than half a century to abolish this shame (1848 in French colonies).
Filmed on location ,the cinematography is splendid indeed ,but one sees little of both families' hard struggle ,sometimes it looks too clean ,too paradisiacal ;they sometimes substitute harlequin romance for poetry and these pointless subplots get in the way.
The ending was sweetened but not thoroughly cheapened : the last picture was inspired by the mothers' eerie dream;and the wreck of the Saint-Géran ,taking account of the technical means of the time ,is quite awesome.
