ELECTIVE AFFINITIES (director: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani; cast: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Marie Gillian, 1996-Italian)
Here is another slow-developing, intellectual work from the Taviani brothers. It plays like an episode done for Masterpiece Theater, based on a novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, and tells the story during the Napoleanic era of Baroness Carlotta (Huppert) and Baron Edouard (Anglade), who once upon a time were passionately in love but have not seen each other in two decades. They become reacquainted, decide to wed, and retire to an estate in Tuscany where they are joined by Otto (Bentivoglio), an architect friend of Edouard's, and Ottilie (Gillian), Carlotta's attractive goddaughter.
If you can believe, a Goethe story being made almost insipid, and a pretty darn good one at that, reduced to having us enjoy the film for its sumptuous landscape and not for the metaphysical thought process Goethe is renown for, is somewhat obscene to contemplate, as we watch the idle rich fuss about with their notions of romance and upper-class manners, in a somewhat disaffecting manner, leaving me with a bored look on my literary kisser.
The title refers to the chemical attraction all things have to other things that are like them, like lovers whose vibes jive, comparing love to the battles that go on in nature, and how it is possible for the lovers to be separated by inexplicable reasons. This explains Goethe's mysterious purpose, that is, if it is really possible to explain how love takes hold of one, as after the treatise of Elective Affinities is read aloud to the four, we witness Edouard and Charlotte spending a night in lust and a child is conceived from this union, who oddly enough, resembles Ottilie and Otto, allowing us to believe that there must be some strange force at work to make all this happen.
The foursome are, unfortunately, attracted to the one's they are not supposed to be attracted to according to the laws of society, which forbids adulterous relationships. So the honorable and loyal friend of Edouard, must yield from his love for Carlotta, and for Carlotta the same is true. And Edouard and Ottlie's love suffers the same consequences. The complications to this formal period piece, revolve around the strength and weaknesses of the characters involved. It is all elegantly acted out, but any power to the story is lost in the insignificance their romantic problems had for me.The once happily married couple, still remain married, just not quite as content as they once were, unable to raise their consciousness above the petty level of their societal obligations and take action to change their situation of living with the one they really love ... What a pity, they are all such swell folks, and yet all that they have to show for their troubles, is one conventional marriage, the death of a love child, and the altering of their foursome relationship forever.
REVIEWED ON 1/30/99 GRADE: C-
Dennis Schwartz: "Movie Reviews"
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