The setting is Bordeaux and its verdant woods, hardly a desert; the sentimental landscape is alive with longing as well. Both Doctor Courreges and his son Raymond are entranced with Maria Cross, a widow with a soiled reputation and now a dead son. She is desperately unhappy and their yearning for her provides a comfort she cannot reciprocate given the societal constraints. (The story must have straddled WWI, because there is subplot about a war-widow.) Instead she is saddled with a rich suitor she does not love ... Twelve years later, as its framing device, the film presents a reunion of sort.
I have not seen an Emmanuelle Beart film in years, and can't say I have enjoyed one of hers for much longer (the last great film must be Andre Techine's _Witnesses_). The actress has withdrawn into an all-purpose hostility. In _The Desert of Love_, however, she is sensational, by turn prim, seductive, world-weary, and strangely alive. It is heart-breaking to see her cover-up her unhappiness with her imperious manner at the end ...
The TV film by Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe (who seems to specialize in prestige TV production) is adapted from Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac's novel. I have never read anything by Mauriac, but am quite impress by this women-centric story, and by Claude Miller's _Therese_, also adapted from his work. The lighting and production design here is tony bourgeois, but the spare score is particularly beautiful.
Surely many teenagers become entranced with older women, but you seldom see this depicted in American movies. (Off the top of my head, I can only think of _Sophie's Choice_.) European films are full of them. A favorite is _The Miracle_ by Neil Jordan, in which both father and son are obsessed with the same woman, much like in this film and in _First Love_ (Maximilian Schell). You wonder why. In any case, _The Desert of Love_ is a great return to form by Emmanuelle Beart. To answer pallavibhunjun's question from 2018, I saw it on amazon's "France" channel, but it will be gone in a few days!
I have not seen an Emmanuelle Beart film in years, and can't say I have enjoyed one of hers for much longer (the last great film must be Andre Techine's _Witnesses_). The actress has withdrawn into an all-purpose hostility. In _The Desert of Love_, however, she is sensational, by turn prim, seductive, world-weary, and strangely alive. It is heart-breaking to see her cover-up her unhappiness with her imperious manner at the end ...
The TV film by Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe (who seems to specialize in prestige TV production) is adapted from Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac's novel. I have never read anything by Mauriac, but am quite impress by this women-centric story, and by Claude Miller's _Therese_, also adapted from his work. The lighting and production design here is tony bourgeois, but the spare score is particularly beautiful.
Surely many teenagers become entranced with older women, but you seldom see this depicted in American movies. (Off the top of my head, I can only think of _Sophie's Choice_.) European films are full of them. A favorite is _The Miracle_ by Neil Jordan, in which both father and son are obsessed with the same woman, much like in this film and in _First Love_ (Maximilian Schell). You wonder why. In any case, _The Desert of Love_ is a great return to form by Emmanuelle Beart. To answer pallavibhunjun's question from 2018, I saw it on amazon's "France" channel, but it will be gone in a few days!