Jean de La Fontaine - Le défi

The sets and costumes are beautiful, there are some good background actors, but overall we found this movie very dull. There's no rhythm, not enough story, the acting is not what it should be. Was it an attempt to follow the fashion of history biopics of these last years? Fouquet, Molière, and now La Fontaine. But if his writings are forever famous, does his life deserves a movie? Judging from this one, I'd say not. Plus there are some annoying literary omissions. For instance, in this movie Jean de la Fontaine seems to discover the idea of talking animals, he gets inspiration by looking at animals and insects... Yet everybody knows, and he himself never denied it, that he was mostly inspired by the classic stories of Esope. He merely (yet brilliantly) modernized them.

This, like too many French scripts aimed at modernizing the seventeenth century's literary production in Paris, is utterly out of context and disregards all facts. Here La Fontaine is presented as an important political commentator feared by the power that be. It is furthermore suggested that his "writing career" depended on Fouquet's support. Many writer of the time are evoked to no purpose other than to promote the "Hero". No mention is made of Aesop. No mention is made of La Fontaine's friendly patrons. We are led to believe that the guy was a Trotskist before his time. The acting is in accordance with the pretensions of the writing.