Sometimes I want to see a film not for the story or the cinematographic value, but to gain insight in the society of a period and location, and that is the case with Quartet. Paris in the twenties of the 20th century interests me for the audacity, the freedom, the excess, and the seeds that were sown for the development in arts, fashion and philosophy in the years after the second world war, when Paris became touchstone in those areas.
In Quartet Marija, a girl from the French West Indies tries to find her way in Paris after her stateless lover is jailed for communist sympathies. She encounters a British female painter and her husband, the Heidlers, who give her food and shelter, and even as she has her doubts, her lover encourages her to stay with them. Soon it becomes clear that the couple has an agreement, by which the husband is allowed to have affairs with young girls like Marija. The painter makes these allowances out of love and the knowledge she would otherwise lose her husband.
The "game" however, as they call it, turns sour as nobody seems to be aware of their true feelings, and when the husband gets free, he and Marija get back together, leaving the Heidlers to assume their old life, probably looking for a new girl.
Biggest problem for the perhaps otherwise entertaining plot, is the casting of Isabelle Adjani as Marija. Marija is said to be a rough, barely civilized beauty from a French colony, and Heidler tells her time and again that she is from a "whole different world" and has no understanding of their society. However, Adjani looks like every other Parisian beauty in the film, and behaves as if she is at a British boarding school. This discord might be a story device, but that is unlikely for it makes the story not more interesting, but more dull. There is no contrast between the couple and Marija and her husband, all seem to belong to the Parisian artistic clique perfectly. Alan Bates as the husband is quite bland, and not a feverish, dangerous, charismatic man that one would expect Mrs. Heidler to love so deeply. Maggie Smith as Mrs. Heidler is her usual condescending, slightly sarcastic self, hiding a vulnerable soul, which she shows wonderfully in the scene where she breaks down and sobs boundlessly.
The scenes in the cabarets and cafés could have been expanded for they provide such a great backdrop, and show glimpse of the naughty nightlife that makes the period so interesting.
In Quartet Marija, a girl from the French West Indies tries to find her way in Paris after her stateless lover is jailed for communist sympathies. She encounters a British female painter and her husband, the Heidlers, who give her food and shelter, and even as she has her doubts, her lover encourages her to stay with them. Soon it becomes clear that the couple has an agreement, by which the husband is allowed to have affairs with young girls like Marija. The painter makes these allowances out of love and the knowledge she would otherwise lose her husband.
The "game" however, as they call it, turns sour as nobody seems to be aware of their true feelings, and when the husband gets free, he and Marija get back together, leaving the Heidlers to assume their old life, probably looking for a new girl.
Biggest problem for the perhaps otherwise entertaining plot, is the casting of Isabelle Adjani as Marija. Marija is said to be a rough, barely civilized beauty from a French colony, and Heidler tells her time and again that she is from a "whole different world" and has no understanding of their society. However, Adjani looks like every other Parisian beauty in the film, and behaves as if she is at a British boarding school. This discord might be a story device, but that is unlikely for it makes the story not more interesting, but more dull. There is no contrast between the couple and Marija and her husband, all seem to belong to the Parisian artistic clique perfectly. Alan Bates as the husband is quite bland, and not a feverish, dangerous, charismatic man that one would expect Mrs. Heidler to love so deeply. Maggie Smith as Mrs. Heidler is her usual condescending, slightly sarcastic self, hiding a vulnerable soul, which she shows wonderfully in the scene where she breaks down and sobs boundlessly.
The scenes in the cabarets and cafés could have been expanded for they provide such a great backdrop, and show glimpse of the naughty nightlife that makes the period so interesting.