Adolphe

Jacquot had wanted to film Benjamin Constant’s 1806 novel when he was younger, but was put off by Bernard Toublanc-Michel’s poor contemporary version in 1968. He found his chance, curiously, in the form of a vehicle for Isabelle Adjani. Adjani plays Ellénore, Constant’s sadly deluded heroine, who throws away her life with her husband the Count (the late, great Jean Yanne) and her children to be with the young Adolphe (Stanislas Merhar). As in Le Septième ciel, this is a conflict of imbalance: the moment she gives in to Adolphe, he becomes indifferent to her. The film is based on the most curious form of drama, in which two people are both blinded to the reality of their own feelings, and whose every moment together sends them deeper into sadness, loss, regret and punishment. What gives this movie its own particular form of delirium is the casting: Adjani, as brilliant as always, her youthful beauty carefully if not desperately preserved as if in amber, and Merhar, one of the most curious figures in modern movies – eternally petulant and boyish, with a manner that seems antique and contemporary at the same time. (KJ)