Well, as for the plot, it's the following. A young and promising engineer Ponceludon watching the people of his country labouring at the swamps full of mosquitoes makes up his mind to go to Versaille and plead the king to finance his project of drying these swamps. When he comes there he makes an aquaintance with an old wise marquise Bellegarde and his daughter Mathilde. The marquise quickly couches him in palace manners and let him to the ocean of complicated intrigues. The young man happens to be quick minded and witty what was appreciated much at the court. During his first “out” he makes an acquaintance with a beautiful court dame Madame de Blayac (Fanny Ardant) and her amateur the abbot Vilecourt (Bernard Giraudeau). The young man was liked by these two sharks and everything went more or less well. But soon Ponceludon fell in love with Mathilde who renounced a good proposal for his sake. The court dame managed to seduce our knight and arranged his meeting with the king. Take in consideration that all events take place a veille of the French revolution. Well, all the rest are court intrigues, duels, balls, love dilemmas and the similar staff. It seems that in the end the young man haven't succeeded in his enterprise after all and returned to swamps. Not for long though as revolution was at hand.
What can be said about this film? I admit that I was disappointed as I expected much more. But if not to be prejudiced and speaking in general the film is not too bad. The main disappoint concerned this famous French wit: I could not imagine that the concept that wit is the real king would be just simply and intentionally repeated several times in film instead just showing it by actions. And speaking about the word duels I didn't find them really funny or witty but this might be because I don't know what wit at the French court of the XVI century was supposed to be. Some scenes are very good though like the one, for example where Vilecourt recites the verses he memorized instead of improvising them and it was discovered by out hero.
What actually makes this film tolerable is the very good actor' playing especially of Fanny Ardant and Bernard Giraudeau. Fanny Ardant is always beautiful and plays brilliantly. Just the right type of the French court dame and it is her usual emoloi. I haven't chance yet to see her in some real dramatic part. Bernard Giraudeau is excellent as usual. To my mind these two actually saved the film by bringing in it some flashes of brilliance and the film is worth watching just for their sake. As for the rest... not bad but nothing really impressive either. Some scenes were not very successful. All the rest of the court people are of that famous standart type: round face, self-contented expression. The "good" characters have more humane expression. In general it is done according to the common patterns. You won't find here any original though or fresh invention, no. But the scenes are done well.
I don't know will you like this film or not so I really can't recommend it. It's up to you to decide. You know now what to expect from it.
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