Friday, June 23, 2017

Les soeurs Brontë (1979)

English title: The Bronte Sisters.

Biographical drama on the lives of the titular characters -- Emily who wrote Wuthering Heights, Charlotte who wrote Jane Eyre, and Anne who wrote Agnes Grey -- and their brother Branwell. Living in a small English village, they dream of literary stardom.

Quite superficial as a biography, but one must credit this partly to the length having been drastically cut. It's not only that, though. The director's sensibility is crude at times, which goes well with other kinds of movies, but not with this one. The only noteworthy performance to my taste is Greggory's Branwell, but this may have little or nothing to do with a lack of skill by the female players, but rather with their characters' rough composition. The story is in itself potentially interesting, and the film has some moments where its bleak dramaticity is well explored. Most of all it is a curious thing to see the English through a Frenchman's eye.

Rating: 50

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