The Lady and the Duke (DVD, 2002)

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This visually breathtaking film from New Wave director Eric Rohmer uses hand-painted sets that depict 18th-century Paris, the English lady's home, and the surrounding countryside with a vivid effect that looks like a realist oil painting brought to life. Set in the mid-1700s during the French Revolution, THE LADY AND THE DUKE tracks the profound friendship between Grace Elliot (Lucy Russell), an English woman who lives in Paris and insists on staying there throughout the war, and The Duke of Orleans (Jean-Claude Dreyfus), the cousin of Louis XVI and Grace's former lover. Russell (FOLLOWING) gives a superb performance as the headstrong, political, beautiful, and daring Grace Elliot, whose real-life memoirs inspired Rohmer to make the film. Dreyfus (DELICATESSEN) plays her perfect counterpart--powerful and unwavering, yet charming, caring, and honest. As each scene of the film magically bleeds into the next, the painterly backdrops make it difficult to discern 3-D objects such as chairs from the trompe l'oiel flat painted sets. Characters enter or exit with shocking life as the camera matches them to the color and texture of the painting. Majestic black horses that pull carriages over the "cobblestone" streets shimmer with velveteen realness. Meanwhile, tension brought on by the war adds strain to the friendship between the lady and the duke, and as the audience endures the fall of the Bastille, the September Massacres, and the finally, the king's execution, they are captivated, entertained, and historically nourished.