Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Friday, May 23, 2008

THE LADY AND THE DUKE (2002)

A tremendous surprise from Eric Rohmer who manages to combine a verbal fest of philosophical & political debate with a tru-life period suspenser about aristos during the French Revolution. Former lovers Grace Elliott (a Scot living in Paris) and the Duke of Orleans find themselves on opposing political sides (she’s the blindly unrepentant Royalist), but aid each other when they aren’t arguing issues. Rohmer’s staging ranges from the simplicity of a D W Griffith one-shot bedroom sequence to elaborate CGI visual backdrops that bring the vivant back to tableau vivant. The latter look like nothing you have seen before and, allied with the Comedie Francais acting style, show the sort of formal sophistication & daring Kubrick missed in BARRY LYNDON. LADY is so different from what you expect that you may find it off-putting at first, but it dictates its own rules and reigns supreme. Viva le Rohmer!

No comments: