Anyone who knows a little about French literature knows Madame Bovary, a novel written by French writer Flaubert in 1857.
The story must be familiar to everyone. The peasant girl Emma, with a little education, falls into rosy fantasy all day long. She despised her husband, Bovary, who was a village doctor, and dreamed of a legendary love. But her two-time affair, far from bringing her happiness, made herself the object of exploitation by loan sharks. In the end, she accumulated a mountain of debts and had no choice but to commit suicide by taking poison.
This novel has always been a hot spot for movie adaptations. From a search on the Internet, there are as many as 12 adaptations. At the beginning of the year, I saw Madame Bovary (1991), starring Isabelle Huppert. The film was quite faithful to the original, and it shot a somewhat dull, gray tone in northern France at that time. Coupled with the high-cold and nervous performance of the goddess Huppert, it is simply that God has restored the novel.
The prototype of Madame Bovary's story is a peach-colored event that is common in life and literature, but the author's brushstrokes perceive sensitive areas that others have not yet touched. Emma's death was not only a tragedy of her own, but a tragedy of the era. The author describes the process of the protagonist's emotional degeneration with delicate brushstrokes, and the author tries hard to find the social root of this tragedy.
Coincidentally, when I was searching for French movies on the Internet, I accidentally saw a 2014 "Madame Bovary" (poster as shown above), downloaded it and watched it, it was quite interesting, so I shared it.
First of all, the director is cool – Anne Fontaine, well-known in the French-speaking world, was born in Luxembourg City in 1959 to a musician father who moved to Paris as a teenager and began to study dance. She started out as a dancer and later in theatre and film. In 1993, she completed her first directed feature film "Love Always Ends in Tragedy". By the way, one of her films, Marvin ou la belle éducation (2017), won good awards and word of mouth, also starring Huppert.
The new Madame Bovary is about a young British woman Gemma (the director is very naughty, very close to the original "Emma"~) and her husband move to a small French village. Their neighbor was a baker named Martin Joubert, and Martin quickly became interested in Gemma and indulged in her charming charm. From the first day they moved in, he thought, this young woman, whose name is also Madame Bovary, especially Gemma (one word difference from Emma), is so bright, moving and exotic, she must be cheating~
The uncle who was born in 1951 was 63 years old when this film was filmed~
The baker's name is Fabrice Luchini, who is Italian by name. He has acted in a lot of French movies, and he has been nominated and won a lot of awards. He looks like a middle-aged uncle in the photos, but the various characters he has created are really vivid and unusual, especially in this film, he is a cute and stupid commotion. little old man.
The young and beautiful Gemma freely released her passionate nature in the scenery of Normandy, and became restless in her heart... This is the first little fresh meat she cheated on. Our lovely old man observes silently, is jealous, and Brain tonic (would she be like Madame Bovary, who owed money to loan sharks and eventually took poison and died?)
In the film, there is a little romance or a little ambiguity of French films from time to time. The heroine likes to eat the bread he bakes. The two of them take a deep breath in front of a fragrant bread and praise the fragrance. So he led her to the back kitchen to experience baking bread for himself. In the closed and hot small kitchen, she took off her coat, revealing her graceful curves, and he glanced at her from time to time in disobedience. Do not forget to teach the trick of kneading dough: give it a massage, be gentle...
This scene is also very easy to "misunderstand". The heroine was stung by a bee, and our lovely old man happened to be there, he unzipped the lady's skirt, pinched the bee, and found venom in the wound. The heroine ordered him: suck it out for me!
Haha, french ah french...
In the end, the heroine, like Madame Bovary, died—not poison, of course. The old man is so cute. When she found rat poison in her house, she thought the heroine was ready to take the poison. After a while, she wondered if she was deeply in love, unable to extricate herself, and carrying heavy loan sharks to commit suicide...why did she die? what? Hee hee, no spoilers.
Modern interpretations and adaptations of famous books can easily turn into spoofs—think how many bad movies we see every year. Fortunately, this new Madame Bovary directed by Fonteyn is not so vulgar. It seems to be a middle-aged and elderly person that we can all encounter in our lives - when you reach the age of thief, you have to bring the famous novels (especially the peach-colored essays) that you read when you were young, and YY come to real life. Through role substitution, secretly cross Chencang with the lover of your dreams.
Thinking about it this way, what kind of modern movies can our famous novels be transformed into? Looking forward to it~ Especially looking forward to the new female directors trying it out.
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