L'Odeur de la mandarine (2015)
Directed by Gilles Legrand

Film Review

L'Odeur de la mandarine, director Gilles Legrand's fourth feature, is a sumptuous melodrama that looks suspiciously like an adaptation of a D.H. Lawrence novel.  In fact it is an original work, although its authors no doubt scripted it whilst under the influence of Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (having presumably re-watched Pascale Ferran's highly charged 2006 adaptation).  With Yves Angelo, one of France's most acclaimed cinematographers, in charge of photography, the film exemplifies French cinema's penchant for high class period drama, although the quality of the design and central performances are sadly not matched by the script, which, being too self-conscious in its literary pretensions, courts ridicule with its abundance of cliché and animal-based metaphor.

Legrand's cinema is the kind more likely to appeal to the average man or woman in the street than implacable critics.  His first feature Malabar Princess (2004) attracted an audience of just under one and half million but it is marred by a kind of soggy sentimentality to which the director is prone, and from which his latest film is far from immune.  That said, L'Odeur de la mandarine is easily Legrand's best film to date, a far more coherent and emotionally involving piece than his previous viticulture-themed drama Tu seras mon fils (2011), although this owes more to the sublime performances from lead actors Olivier Gourmet and Georgia Scalliet than anything contributed by Legrand and his co-screenwriter Guillaume Laurant.    

Olivier Gourmet need no introduction.  One of francophone cinema's most familiar faces and most talented performers, his performance in Legrand's film (in an unsually romantic role) is as compelling and authentic as ever.  There's hardly a scene in the film in which his devastatingly fragile character doesn't engage our sympathies, and it requires no sentiment-tweaking from the scriptwriters to make us feel the aching desolation of a man who is unable to grasp and take possession of the thing he most desires.  It would take an actress of remarkable ability not to be totally eclipsed by Gourmet's heartrending performance, but fortunately the film offers just this, in the shape of newcomer Georgia Scalliet, someone we shall be seeing a great deal of in future years if this revelatory cinematic debut is anything to go by.

Having mastered her craft with the esteemed Comédie-Française, Georgia Scalliet is revealed in this first big screen role to be an actress of exceptional quality, not just stunningly sensual (as the part demands) but capable of seizing our emotions through a performance of incredible depth and maturity.  Her character is a mass of contradictions, a challenge for any young actress.  Like Constance Chatterley, Angèle is a free spirit who craves independence and sensual fulfilment, and yet she is shackled with the grief of a dead former lover and loyalty to the man she marries not for love, but out of duty and misplaced sympathy.  Scalliet deals with this immense inner conflict with startling conviction and even if the script does her few favours she impresses as a performer of rare charm and sensibility.

Up until the point at which the central characters tie the marital knot, L'Odeur de la mandarine barely puts a foot wrong, and what faults there are on the writing and directing fronts, are mitigated by the sincerity of the performances and the sheer lyrical power of the cinematography.  From the mid-point on, the film loses its way somewhat as Lawrencian self-indulgence takes over, aided and abetted by Legrand's irksome tendency to over-egg the sentiment.  Thanks to Scalliet's riveting performance, it still captivates as a blistering portrait of one woman's quest for personal fulfilment, but all the skill and passion is in the build up, the climax being hammered out too complacently for you to feel you've had your money's worth.

Film Synopsis

At the height of summer in 1918 the First World War continues to rage, but for cavalry officer Charles the war is already over.  After losing a leg in the fighting he now faces a long and difficult period of convalescence on his farm in Picardy.  To help him, he engages a nurse, Angèle, who shows up with her little daughter and soon makes herself indispensable.  The solitary invalid acquires a fondness for his young carer which, over the ensuing weeks, develops into something deeper.  He asks her to marry him, but she refuses, still loyal to the memory of her former lover who did not return from the war.  In the end, Angèle gives in to Charles's supplications and they become man and wife, if only in the legal sense of the term.  Even though Angèle is devoted to her husband, she cannot bring herself to consummate their union.  As one war ends, another, more personal one, is about to begin...