I love Juliette Binoche. I'll watch any movie that she graces. This one takes place in France in 1832. The cholera outbreak has the villages in panic. An Italian nobleman has taken exile in southern France followed from his homeland by Austrian spies. He hopes to single-handedly free his country from Austrian control and is trying to raise money for the revolution in France.
This is not my favorite type of movie. I do tend to see a lot of wartime films, but they center on personal stories, the lives of people and families affected by the war. Movies like this one begin to lose me when they shift around with the ins and outs of war, the strategies, the camps, the chasing, the conflicts, the trumpeting. Who am I rooting for? Who's winning? Why are they attacking? What are they trying to accomplish? It's not the fault of the director or screen play. It's my own, for sleeping through history class. Furthermore I find that I don't do well with any movie involving petticoats.
While Angelo, the nobleman, is hiding out from the Austrian spies on the rooftops of rural France he takes refuge in the attic of Pauline de Theus, the wife of Marquis de Theus. She is awaiting her husband's return. She provides shelter and food for Angelo and they become partners as she looks for her missing husband and he tries to get home to Italy with money for the revolution.
The scenery is beautiful, these two beautiful people riding horses through mountains and countryside. I can't help but think of my nephew Blaise who has currently returned to his mother's homeland in southern France to work in his uncle's vineyard. He has also taken up training as an equestrian and is, as word has it, "a natural." Thank heavens for foreign films, I can imagine being there with him, the lucky duck.
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