Lady Chatterley

"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.

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.

I have seen the BBC adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel made by Ken Russell with Joely Richardson and Sean Bean and there is no comparison: I prefer the French adaptation even if the film is not always faithful to the book on some points (for example, in the book, Sir Clifford is having problems with his miners and his employees because he is very arrogant but in the film, Pascale Ferran does not mention these problems). The actors are maybe a little more good-looking in the BBC version but that's about it (sorry, Sean Bean). And if you want to see a film about a beautiful but bored, aristocratic woman whose sensuality is suddenly re-awakened by her meeting with the sullen, unsociable but virile Parkin/Mellors, then this film is for you. Pascale Ferran seemed to have focused her film on the love-story between Lady Constance/Connie and Parkin, the gamekeeper and the discovery or re-discovery of one's senses. That is why you have beautiful shots of nature, of magnificent trees in spring and why you have many scenes in which Constance is walking in the forest and just listening to the songs of birds. The forest is also the place where she discovers her own sensuality. The actors are brilliant, they magnificently show all sorts of emotions on their faces and the love-making scenes are all made with much reserve, with subtlety...It is all refined and very beautifully-done. I loved this Connie, I could relate to her and I loved the long pauses and the looks between the two leads, the big shots on the hands, on some legs or other parts of the body and some refined clothes. The costumes are also important. This movie reminds me a little of some scenes of The Piano by Jane Campion and if you enjoyed The Piano, I am sure you will like this French adaptation. Definitely a 'must-see'. It is a little long, more than 2 hours and a half, I think but if you are used to watching long BBC period dramas like me, you will have no fear in watching this!

Wow. I really dislike slow moving romances, but the amount of artistry that was injected into this production, and the rendered result is just pure art in every sense of the word.

Every shot is an oil painting. I don't know what it is about the French and their history with art that makes them such masters, but not a single strip of film was wasted here. The lighting, the costumes, the camera angles, and composition of the frame and music, really were just given such care that it's a wonder this film hasn't gained more notoriety among D.H. Lawrence enthusiasts.

Then there are the sex scenes. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is sex in this film, though it's rendered with a very gentle brush stroke by a master painter of film. There is nothing tawdry in the nature of the sex other than the fact that the couple is bucking societal convention. To find out what I mean, you have to watch the film.

This is a story about a woman's wants and needs. Whom she married because modern convention pushed her in that direction, and what she really wanted because her innate nature and the man in question succumbed to proper instincts.

One man has societal power and wealth, but cannot care for himself without the assistance that his wealth affords. Another can withstand adversity after adversity, and like so many men, prefers, prospers, and even thrives when he's alone. One is the master of men. Another is the master of himself, and cares for no other. Ladies, which do you prefer? Which do you say you want, and which one fires your heart, body and soul? That's what this movie is all about. On an even more intellectual level both males have a kind of female inner psyche working for them. One gains the world, the other gains something else.

I have two regrets about this film. Firstly that there are a couple of pans (and one awful zoom) that come lose to derailing the flow of the movie. But as visually jarring as they are, they pass quickly. Like a B-movie producer/director once told me, America makes the best dollies and tripods for professional movie cameras, and that is an unchallenged truth. If you look at any foreign film, and compare the camera moves with American movies, you'll note that American films have very smooth dolly shots, Steadicam shots, and the now occasional rare pan. Foreign films are still playing catchup, even for this film which was shot only ten years ago! Secondly; I streamed this film off of Amazon, and it is not a high definition transfer with muted colors. The colors I'm thinking were a creative choice of the director and cinematographer, and they may have even used a soft lens or a soft filter in front of the lens to add that bit of visual texture to give this film an even softer touch and intimate feel. Even so, I wanted to see more information on the screen, but whether it was the creative team being artistic or the limitations of the technology, I'll never know until I see this thing on bluray.

Here's the thing; I was forced to read D.H. Lawrence in high school, and hated his writing. It was slow, lethargic, seemed to cater to over emotionalism, and just downright boring as hell when compared to some of the sci-fi authors or military fiction authors I used to read (and get more out of), but this film (and the French really do love Lawrence) very much delivers a film maker's film. And, as usual from French cinema, gives us a character study of the gentler side of human nature. What is, what we'd like, and what ought to be.

I don't recommend this film to anyone who is not a cinema aficionado. If you like heavy psychology and films about how a trist can be mistaken or evolve into love, then this film is for you.

Otherwise, maybe give it a shot and see what you think.

Enjoy.