There are those who maintain that this should be counted among Eric Rohmer's Morality Tales but I consider this masterly version of Heinrich von Kleist's novella to stand alone in his output.
The verbosity of some of this director's modern pieces is inclined to test one's patience but here it is acceptable in a nineteenth century setting and has been adapted by Rohmer himself, having learned German when writing a thesis on Goethe's 'Faust'.
The direction is both elegant and restrained whilst its sparseness and economy of gesture call to mind a certain Robert Bresson. It is not without eroticism and the image of Edith Clever as the title character stretched out sleepily on a red bed wearing a luminous nightgown is worthy of an Ingres or a David. Little wonder that she proves so tantalising to the Count F of Bruno Ganz.
The painterly compositions throughout are courtesy of Néstor Almendros who, like his fellow graduates from the Centro Sperimentali di Cinematografia, Storaro and de Santis, is a master of natural light.
The 'rape' itself has always been a subject for 'scholarly' debate and here Rohmer has left it to our imagination. Indeed he suggests by means of a single close up that the perpetrator might perhaps be the handsome devil of Leopardo the servant rather than the eccentric Count F.
Bruno Ganz is beautifully understated here but it is the touching portrayal by Edith Clever as the Marquise that lingers longest.
'Ambiguity' is the name of the game in Kleist's piece and as such suits Rohmer's style to a tee.
