This is a very beautiful film, I am tempted to call it French film at its best and loveliest, it's one of the best stories of Balzac and it is intoxicatingly well made, just the intrigue being wonderfully contrived like a story by E. T. A. Hoffmann but made consistently realistic and convincing. Everything is marvellous here, the costumes, the actors, the music, the settings, the direction, the style is exquisite all the way through, and Thomas Coumans as the leading character is like a French Dorian Grey but without fading, actually keeping it up even unto death. It's a tragedy of Faustian dimensions, and it honours both Balzac and French cinema to an unforgettable maximum.
