THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF
(LE HUSSARD SUR LE TOIT)
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF (LE HUSSARD SUR LE TOIT) is an exercise in style. It is a fast action tale of a devastating 1832 cholera epidemic in the south of France. Secondarily, it is both a romance and a horror show. It is billed as a romance because it has two beautiful stars who hang out together in the show, but no more. Equally well, it is macabre since it has more needlessly gruesome dead bodies than any morgue. In close-ups the characters vomit a lot, usually all over themselves, and after the hundredth corpse, you may feel like throwing up as well.
The local doctor tells us, that this is the "worse epidemic ever" and shortly thereafter he dies. Let me warn the squeamish again that if you go to this show, you will see scores and scores of dead bodies. I am not talking about removed shots from fifty feet away. These are close-ups of pale white people with congealed blood on them and the look of absolute terror on their faces. In one scene a large black bird begins to peck the eye out of one of the corpses.
When the director (Jean-Paul Rappeneau) is able to get away from pestilence and death, his picture is gorgeous. The cinematography by Thierry Arbogast is full of steel blues and grays. Especially lovely are the sequences of the towns at night and of the mountains. If you are a fan of swashbuckling sort of tales, you may like the hectic pace and all of the little adventures the director puts his stars through. The costumes (Franca Squarciapino) and the music (Jean-Claude Petit) are both lush and beautiful. The sound (Pierre Gamet and Jean Gouldier) is particularly impressive in the huge noise created by a group of cavalry rushing from out of nowhere in a dense forest.
The plot of the show is that Angelo (Olivier Martinez) is a 25 year old Italian army colonel and would be revolutionary. He is being hunted by the Austrian secret police. He meets a beautiful young woman named Pauline de Theus (Juliette Binoche). Together they search for Pauline's husband.
Angelo writes frequently to his mother who "is a duchess that talks only of revolution." In one letter he tells her, "Mother, you always wanted me to be more reckless. Today, you would have been proud of me." She would not be so proud of his acting which is non-existent. Olivier Martinez is a man handsome enough to be a model, but I saw no evidence of any acting talent. He has a striking pretty brown tabby cat who does know how to act. I liked the cat better than any of the actors or actresses in the film.
Juliette Binoche can be a wonderful actress, see for example, DAMAGE, THREE COLORS: BLUE, and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING among others. Here, she gets poor guidance from the director I guess because she shows little emotion and spends most of her time in vacuous smiles. The chemistry between the two leads, who theoretically are falling in love, is not believable. For that matter, neither are the action sequences. In one, Angelo fights off twenty soldiers merely by making sure the sun gets in their eyes.
Overall, the script (Jean-Claude Carriere, Nina Companeez and Jean-Paul Rappeneau based on the novel by Jean Giono) is a mess. There are fist fights, fighting armies, murders, plague, fires, revolutionaries, lost husbands, romances, and lots of people whom it is hard to figure why they are there at all. If you were watching the show at home, you would be constantly rewinding the tape in vain to try to figure out what is happening. Confusion is this show's middle name. To make it worse, everyone in the picture moves with such a high nervous energy that it leaves you exhausted.
Finally, one piece of trivia. They had only one way to treat cholera back then. They poured alcohol all over the body and rubbed vigorously in order to stimulate the circulation.
THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF runs way too long at 2:10. I saw all of it, but it is so repetitious that if I had left after only thirty minutes, I would not have missed anything. The picture is in French with English subtitles. The film is rated R. There is brief nudity, no sex, but lots of extremely horrific pictures of people dead or dying. This is a very intense show that is only for people with strong stomachs. If teenagers want to see it, make sure they can handle the gore. I liked the pretty parts of the picture, but otherwise it left me cold so I can not recommend it and can only give it * 1/2.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: May 24, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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