![]() distribution now, just as Jacquot’s latest, “Suzanna Andler” has its European release, “Casanova, Last Love” barely made an impression following its French rollout in March 2019, when it grossed under $500,000. ![]() ![]() Is this the Casanova for the early 21st century? A man famed among peers for his charisma and broad intelligence, companion of Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin, reduced to a lovesick sad-sack pining after a capricious young prostitute whose physical attributes can’t compensate for her demonstrable lack of charm? Jacquot and Thomas dispense with the kind of brilliancy of Alexandre Volkoff’s unsurpassed 1927 “Casanova,” ignore the Freudian phantasmagoric interiority of “Fellini’s Casanova,” and give us a version in which all women are oversexed and the great man himself, as incarnated by Vincent Lindon, is as dulled as an overused guillotine blade. How odd then that their vision imagines a world of predatory hormonally-charged females all throwing themselves at a lackluster, aging roué who shows more gusto wolfing down food than rutting around skirts. What insight can be found to kindle enough interest to pour reportedly more than $7.5 million into a retelling of the great diarist’s life? Given Benoît Jacquot’s success with his earlier costume drama “Farewell, My Queen,” based on Chantal Thomas’ novel, perhaps he thought a new angle could be found together with Thomas, this time credited as main scriptwriter. The number of films about Giacomo Casanova is legion, which makes the question “why another one?” especially relevant.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |