Dir: Sophie Barthes. UK-Belgium. 2014. 118mins Gustave Flaubert’s once scandalous 1856 novel has defeated many an experienced director from Vincente Minnelli to Claude Chabrol. In only her second feature, Cold Souls director Sophie Barthes wrestles a refined, languid period drama from the novel that is not without its flaws but impresses with its fastidious attention to detail, craftsmanship and oppressive atmosphere. It may lack the emotional intensity that the material might suggest but there are enough elements here to attract lovers of period dramas and adaptations of the classics. In the end, this Madame Bovary, like so many others, is unlikely to stand as the definitive version of the...
↧