Jacquot shot this stunning adaptation of De Marivaux’s unfinished La vie de Marianne (sometimes cited as the first epistelary novel) in a three-hour version, which was shown on French television in instalments in the mid-1990s, but his preferred cut is this breathless 1997 theatrical version. Few period pieces are more alive, perhaps because Jacquot is unimpressed with the trappings that usually gum up the works – the dresses, the carriages, the lavish table settings. He knows that it’s primarily a matter of faces and bodies, as in any film, and as usual, his attunement to the emotional and imaginative lives of his actors and their characters is extraordinary. Virginie Ledoyen is Marianne, the young orphaned girl who believes she was born into an aristocratic family and enters a convent to avoid the distasteful prospect of becoming a kept woman. In many ways, just as much as La fille seule, this is a tribute to the radiant young Ledoyen. ‘I wanted a girl who could be a gypsy… and a princess,’ said Jacquot, who met the actress through Olivier Assayas. ‘I soon knew that she’s the kind of girl that I can look at with my camera and make her the only one.’ As indeed she is, in both films. (KJ)
