Movie review: The Duchess of Langeais (Ne touchez pas la hache)

by John P. Meyer

If you're ready to leave the Summer heat behind for a spell and don't mind sifting through subtitles (parlay voo Fran-say? Not this cowpoke), then buster, I've got the period costume drama for you.

It's called The Duchess of Langeais or Ne touchez pas la hache (which translates to something entirely different, but never mind) and it's directed by Jacques Rivette, who François Truffaut credits with starting the New Wave in cinema but whose films are hardly known on these shores.

Employing a stately, measured camera movement achieved using a piece of film equipment called a "dolly" (also hardly known on these shores since the rise of first-person shaky-cam auteurs), Duchess derives from a work by the prolific 19th century novelist Honoré de Balzac titled La duchesse de Langeais, which actually DOES translate to the same thing as the Americanized title. Go figure.

The story involves the celebrated (not to mention decorated: epaulets, medals, etc.) French military hero, Marquis Armand de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu, bearing strong resemblance to his famous acting dad right down to the greasy unkempt 'do and the rather prominent schnoz), and the would-be love affair he attempts to spark up with the titular duchess.

Speaking of titular: when we first meet Antoinette, as she's known amongst her highfalutin Parisian society peers, she's practically overflowing from the bodice of her satin evening gown (Red? Green? Who can recall?). Catching the eye of the glum-yet-dashing military bloke across the room, Antoinette demands that her hostess arrange an introduction. Armand - still recovering from an extended expedition across the Saharan sands, where bodices didn't enter into the equation - is immediately smitten.

As portrayed by the remarkably expressive (and undeniably desirable) Jeanne Balibar, Antoinette de Langeais turns out to be a prick tease of the highest order. After Armand affords her a private audience during which he delivers a windy account of his travels in search of the headwaters of the Nile, the duchess proffers a forthright invitation (her eyes practically going Groucho) to call upon her the following evening.

Little does Armand know that his travails upon the desert sands will seem a trice compared to the deprivations and indignities in store for him at the beck and call of this cruel coquette.

When it becomes clear to the morose Marquis that his conquest of the duchess will prove a difficult and lengthy undertaking, he nevertheless perseveres. Months pass. (And scenes in the film involving additional cruel prick teasing.) Just when he thinks he's getting the "go" signal, Antoinette spurns his tentative advances for the umpteenth time, and Armand decides to fight lack of fire with fire. He has the duchess kidnapped from her coach on the way home from one of her wastrel parties and brought to him in a basement, where his confederates are putting the cherry-hued glow on a branding iron...

But enough of these plot revelations. Suffice it to say that Armand is preparing to rock Antoinette's peacock-pretentious world with some real-life in-kind, building her up for a big event and then leaving her hanging - as she's done to him so many times.

When a trick of the clock results in an unexpected outcome to their mutual romantic standoff (there's one servant who deserves the boot, I think we can all agree), the ending to the drama can't be said to come as any surprise, but getting there is well worth the often torturous (but ever sumptuous) 137 minute journey.

Director Rivette employs deft stylistic flourishes, such as curtains closing and opening to indicate chapter segues, and a vigorous poking of fireplace logs as a metaphor for dangerous actions about to be undertaken. The device of Armand's limp is used to good and restrained effect, while the sound of his cane striking the stone floor of a Spanish chapel resonates like gunfire.

While the character of Armand was probably never written as a happy-go-lucky one, we nevertheless would have appreciated seeing anything other than a frown or grimace upon the face of Mr. Depardieu (the younger), who appears to be emulating his dad's acting style a bit too assiduously: loosen up, Guillaume! Before you're typecast.