I feel Jean-Claude Carrière behind the story. It drags on and yet it fascinates. It has a pinch of Bunuel in it. It doesn't show the blood, and not the outwardly world. Despite of the incredible state of affairs, with war, cholera, daily deaths, sufferings, we are taken and follow in a world above the physical misery.
What is displayed is another world; a world of strength, confidence, and most of all, love.
The movie doesn't work on the pictures. It works on what the audience can build up between the individual frames. And we learn to see outstanding individuals, not following the daily reasoning and cheating.
It struck me most, how - and we don't know when it happened - the heroine fell in love, and for the first time after more than one hour into the movie ... smiles! At HIM. And how, I think for the first time after one and a half hour of the running movie, the hero could actually save a person from the cholera with that strange method. Here we see for the first time his feelings for HER. His actions had been clear before; though shrouding his feelings behind convention.
I for one also do love the end. It is not the Hollywoodian kissing sequence, though still open. Never mind the actual outcome. We have seen at least two people living their lives to what they could drag out of these lives; and - most important - remain good and considerate people throughout.
Real role models in our dreadful times of a sorry state of affairs.
What is displayed is another world; a world of strength, confidence, and most of all, love.
The movie doesn't work on the pictures. It works on what the audience can build up between the individual frames. And we learn to see outstanding individuals, not following the daily reasoning and cheating.
It struck me most, how - and we don't know when it happened - the heroine fell in love, and for the first time after more than one hour into the movie ... smiles! At HIM. And how, I think for the first time after one and a half hour of the running movie, the hero could actually save a person from the cholera with that strange method. Here we see for the first time his feelings for HER. His actions had been clear before; though shrouding his feelings behind convention.
I for one also do love the end. It is not the Hollywoodian kissing sequence, though still open. Never mind the actual outcome. We have seen at least two people living their lives to what they could drag out of these lives; and - most important - remain good and considerate people throughout.
Real role models in our dreadful times of a sorry state of affairs.