It's funny how the French have always kept on making makes like this throughout the years and still have a sort of monopoly on these type of movies this present day.
It's a movie about one of the oldest and most eternal themes; love. It's not really an happy movie about love though and the movie is filled with characters who are all longing for their true love, while they due to the circumstances of life, are stuck with others. This theme and concept also raises a whole lot of other themes in the movie such as jealousy, envy and just blind hate.
It's a really fine made movie, that also truly is beautiful looking. Once you start looking more into the movie you'll notice and appreciate more the movie its camera-work and also good quick style of editing, in which the French always have been pioneers at.
It's a French period piece, so you can expect lots of god looking costumes and silly looking haircuts. It's all grand and also expensive looking, which is quite amazing actually, considering that this movie got made in Nazi-occupied France at the time. Must have also been one of the reasons why production for this movie lasted 18 months., which especially for those days was extremely long for any sort of movie.
It's a movie that centers around its many characters, which means that the actors are given plenty of room to give some powerful and impressive performances. The movie does really feel like a Shakespeare play at times, also since Shakespeare's plays themselves play an actual role in the movie.
The movie gets better as it more and more starts to progress. Caling this movie therefore overlong is a bit uncalled for, even though with its over 3 hours of running time it's still a long movie of course. The movie however is a two parter and I also wouldn't be surprised if these two parts also got shown separately at its initial release.
9/10
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