My wife who read Proust's works in French liked this movie. I haven't read any Proust so I was completely lost and gave up after the first hour watching the DVD. I got tired of bothering her to ask who was who and what was happening but I kept wandering back to the TV to catch parts of it. I don't recommend this film to anyone unfamiliar with the novels. Characters and events move back & forth in time and if that's not confusing enough, sometimes they appear in the past and present at the same time. She later admitted she lost interest at times and fought off dozing due to the slow pageant-like pacing. This is a demanding film that requires your absolute attention, preferably when you're not tired.
I firmly believe the French make the best costume films and this film is a perfect example. Although the handsome period sets and costumes are finely detailed, they are marred by the too dark photography during the indoor scenes. To make matters worse, the white subtitles are hard to read at times because the letters lack black borders making them impossible to read against white or light backgrounds.
The actors seemed good matches for their characters but listening to John Malkovich speak drawling phonetic French is bizarre if not funny.
Film adapted from novels should stand on their own without the viewer having to read the novel beforehand in order to follow it. 'Time Regained' is probably the best example of not being able to follow a film based on a novel, or to make it worse, several novels.
For Proust fans ONLY and those fluent in French due to the bad subtitling.
I firmly believe the French make the best costume films and this film is a perfect example. Although the handsome period sets and costumes are finely detailed, they are marred by the too dark photography during the indoor scenes. To make matters worse, the white subtitles are hard to read at times because the letters lack black borders making them impossible to read against white or light backgrounds.
The actors seemed good matches for their characters but listening to John Malkovich speak drawling phonetic French is bizarre if not funny.
Film adapted from novels should stand on their own without the viewer having to read the novel beforehand in order to follow it. 'Time Regained' is probably the best example of not being able to follow a film based on a novel, or to make it worse, several novels.
For Proust fans ONLY and those fluent in French due to the bad subtitling.