Les enfants du siècle

Diane Kury's oppulent film is a mixed bag. In it's favour it features

real life lovers Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel on excellent

form. As Alfred de Musset Magimel gives us a young man

completely out of his mind on a cocktail of opium and absinthe. A

man deeply creative and talented, but unable to function as a

human being. Binoche's George Sand is a strong a determined

woman. The scene where she finds that Musset may die after

overdosing is wonderfully performed with passion and grandeur.

The film comes alive in her eyes. As filmed by Vilko Filac and

dressed by Christian La Croix, Binoche has never looked more

beautiful or sensual.

However Kurys' direction and her screenplay, co-written by

Francois Olivier Rousseau and Murray Head, lacks direction and

understanding of her period. The brothel scenes are particularly

over the top. Yet her direction of her actor is magnificent.

What is missing from Kurys' film most of all however is Sand and

Musset as writers, as creative masters. There is no sense of their

value in the film beyond their doomed love affair.

Les Enfants du Siecle is a mixed bag, but certainly worth a look.

If you have any interest in French Romanticism, or romanticism in general, see this film. The story is taken from both Musset's & Sand's accounts of the affair that took place. If a film is to be made about a poet, use the poets feelings and even words at the most opportune times, this film does that, and then some. This film is well crafted, from every aspect of its making. The performances by Binoche & Magimel are both riveting and heart wrenching.

If this love were a battle, the filmmaker would most definitely taken the side of Sand. As the truth of this affair left Musset's heart dispirited until his death. Even his friends, like Eugene Delacroix, have said that his pen was a poison that infected his reader like a virus. But all histoire aside, as a film, this is an exquisite piece of work, that is both heart-breaking and entertaining. In the words of the central characters, "Shame on you, who are the first to show me treason. The horror and anger, which made me lose my reason."-Alfred de Musset "The angels are no more pure than the heart of a young man who loves truthfully."-George Sand

Above all watch this film and judge for yourself.

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.

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.

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.