L'Occitanienne (2008)
Directed by Jean Périssé

Film Review

The limits of romantic love are explored with delicacy and tenderness in this sombre reconstruction of a real-life event, the brief meeting of the French writer René de Chateaubriand with an ardent young admirer.  It is a beautifully ironic story, for although Chateaubriand is able to arouse a burning passion in others through his literary achievements, he himself has lost the physical and spiritual yearning for love.  The revelatory rencontre of an old man and his muse in an appropriately dark, stormy mountain hotel evokes with a searing poignancy the transience and boundaries of human experience.

L'Occitanienne is the first cinematic feature to be directed by Jean Périssé, who had previously made several documentaries for television and who is very much devoted to the Pyrenees, the region where he lives.  Through his subtle and elegant mise-en-scène, Périssé shows great promise as a filmmaker, although his efforts are compromised a little in this film by some unnecessary clichés and the distracting inclusion of many cutaway shots of the Pyrenean setting, both of which diminish the intensity of the central drama.

The quality of Périssé's suitably restrained direction is enhanced by the striking chiaroscuro cinematography (which was presumably inspired by French paintings of the period) and sublime performances from the three principals, with a particularly arresting contribution from Valentine Teisseire in her auspicious film debut.  Despite its modest scope and limited budget,  L'Occitanienne manages to be captivating work, a compelling chamber piece that feels like an Ingmar Bergman film seen through the distinctive prism of French romanticism.

Film Synopsis

Who was L'Occitanienne, the mysterious woman that preoccupied the celebrated French writer René de Chateaubriand in his later years?  One man knows the identity of this unknown lover - the maître d'hôtel at a remote mountain retreat in Cauterets, set high up in the Pyrenees.  It was during one stormy evening in 1829 that he witnessed the ageing writer arrive at the hotel in search of nothing more than a bed for the night.  By chance there happened to be an attractive aristocratic woman staying at the hotel at the time.  The meeting seemed almost providential.

Even though he was forty years her senior, Chateaubriand could not resist being drawn to this fascinating woman, and she appeared to be just as taken with him.  Within moments of their first meeting, these two fugitives from the storm were bound to one another by an intense mutual longing.  Unaware that they were being spied on by the maître d'hôtel, a soppy romantic at heart, the writer and his young admirer are soon caught up in the most passionate of liaisons.  No wonder  L'Occitanienne became an obsession of Chateaubriand...