Wondering what’s happening this weekend at the Dryden
Theatre? It’s so strange that you would ask, because that’s exactly what we’re
going to discuss. First, however, you might want to get comfy for a little
history lesson…
Madame de Maintenon was the second
wife of Louis XIV, a.k.a. the Sun King. Born in prison to a disgraced family of
noble origin, her low social status prevented her from a public marriage and
acknowledgement as Queen of France. In an effort to help other well-bred
daughters whose families had fallen on hard times, Madame de Maintenonfounded a rather radical
school designed to make women intellectual equals to men. The Dryden’s Friday
presentation, Patricia Mazuy’s accomplished Saint-Cyr, follows the fortunes of two
young ladies in yet further confirmation that the road to hell is paved with
good intentions.
Saint-Cyr opens in
the late 17th century as the 250 girls who have been chosen to attend the
titular institution are descending upon it. Madame de Maintenon
(played by the inimitable Isabelle Huppert) is eager to begin her experiment,
which will encourage the girls to think beyond an advantageous marriage,
perhaps even lead them to aspire to become judges or doctors. A quick bond
forms between two students — the confident Anne and the insecure Lucie —
and once the film flashes forward five years, it looks as though Saint-Cyr is a
success.
It’s during Anne and Lucie’s
passionate interpretation of some Racine
that the ardently Catholic Madame becomes concerned that all this free-thinking
may be leading the girls into temptation. But once Lucie implores Madame for
guidance, a heartbreaking struggle ensues between the de facto Queen and the
furious Anne, who once trusted in Madame’s revolutionary vision but now watches
helplessly as her teenage classmates become brides of either the moneyed
elderly or Christ.
Both MorganeMoré as Anne and Nina Meurisse as
Lucie make astonishing film debuts, but it no doubt helps to learn opposite the
best. Huppert makes it look easy with a typically virtuoso performance
as a powerful woman who uses her hard-earned nepotism to achieve good, but who
also sees a chance for her own vicarious redemption through the salvation of a
sadly malleable young lady.
No one does the frock flick better than the French —
witness The Horseman on the Roof, Queen Margot, Ridicule, A Very Long
Engagement— and Saint-Cyr is
but one more stellar entry into the pantheon of heaving-bosom period drama. In
the running for a palaceful of Césars
in 2001, Saint-Cyr justifiably won
for its elaborate costume design (composer John Cale,
ex-Velvet Underground, was also nominated for his gorgeous score).
But it’s not surprising that Saint-Cyr didn’t get a proper U.S.
release. Distributors most likely assumed that more than a passing knowledge of
French history would be required to appreciate Saint-Cyr (playwright Jean Racine and architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart pop up as well) but
its universal conflict — that of gaining knowledge while maintaining virtue
— echoes well beyond the borders of any one country.
Like zombies or
vampires, Canadians look like us and sound like us (for the most part,
eh?), but they are not us, a fact we both sometimes forget, doubtless due to
one of us being an enormous, ill-mannered bully. So during the months of May
and June the Dryden is honoring our deserving neighbors to the north with a
series called “Bright Northern Lights,” which spotlights the best in Canadian
cinema. Filmmaker Don McKellar, who wrote 1992’s Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould and 1998’s The Red Violin (he also
appeared in both films as well as a ton of other stuff) stops by the Dryden
this Saturday, and he’s bringing along his second feature film, a film industry
satire called Childstar.
McKellar stars in Childstar as a
struggling auteur who learns the intricacies of the movie game while at the
beck and call of spoiled celebri-tween Taylor Brandon
Burns (Mark Rendall) and his she-wolf mother (a
somnolent Jennifer Jason Leigh). Using a cast ostensibly selected from Who’s Who in the Great White North (Kids in the Hall‘s Dave Foley, Ally McBeal’s Gil Bellows, Growing Pains‘ Alan Thicke),
McKellar skewers both the American and Canadian film
industries and takes a surprisingly serious look at a lucrative business that
claims to have the best interests of its littlest cash cows at heart but which
is actually sucking the appeal right out of them.
Saint-Cyr (NR), directed by Patricia Mazuy,
shows Friday, May 19, and Childstar (R),
directed by visiting guest artist Don McKellar, shows
Saturday, May 20, at the George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre, 8 p.m.
This article appears in May 17-23, 2006.
