Colonel Chabert (1994) User Reviews

Excellent take on Balzac's story

[editor-92 · 8/10 · 26 April 2005]

I recently read the story to see how these two match up, and if you can believe it, this film improves upon Balzac. The story is moved around, I think, to drive home the idea that Colonel Chabert is a man who has suffered much and yet he comes home, not a hero, but as an outcast.

As someone mentioned, I was initially confused if Chabert was akin to The Return of Martin Guerre. No. It is firmly established by Balzac that Chabert is the real deal. What's interesting, though, is not is he, isn't he, but how his wife, and society, treats him.

I think this is a timeless story of men who go off to fight for their country and when they come home time has left them behind. Chabert is a tragic figure made all the more poignant by the amazing Gerard Depardieu. I don't care that he's been in 1 million films, he's captivating.

Fanny Ardant has a horrible character to play. Once a prostitute, Rose has used her feminine wiles to climb the social ladder. Are her emotions true for Compte Ferraud? I think they are and perhaps couple that with her social standing at the time, and you start to feel some empathy for her.

Fabrice Lucini is slowly worming his way into my heart. He's exceptional here as Derville.

I think if you can get your hands on this gem of a film, you won't be sorry. French cinema at its finest.

A haunting story, but one longs for straight forward tale telling

[FISHCAKE · 7/10 · 17 November 1999]

First, let me confess that I have not read this particular Balzac novel, so maybe I am directing my cavils unfairly at director and editor. Still my experience with Balzac in other stories is that he writes as a realist, not an obscurantist. This is most certainly a film worth one's while, but one is left sorely puzzled at the end. Was the Colonel a fraud, used by the lawyer for his own ends (or for whose beyond himself); or was the Colonel not a fraud, but used as aforesaid by the lawyer; or did the lawyer truly try to serve the honest Colonel? The director and/or the editor appear to me to have deliberately obscured these questions, which doesn't seem like Balzac, the realist. At the same time the film does an excellent job of delineating the characters, if not their motives, and the cast and production is superb. That opening battlefield scene is bound to haunt one's dreams. Still, one wonders at the all too common penchant among contemporary film makers to favor ambiguity above all else. Weren't the problems and motives of all these characters complicated enough for Yves Angelo?

Fascinating, well acted character study and mystery

[runamokprods · 8/10 · 9 December 2010]

Wonderfully acted by Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant, and beautifully shot.

A man re-emerges 10 years after being declared dead in the Napoleonic wars. He wants something, but even HE doesn't seem sure what – his money his wife kept, and brought to her new marriage? Revenge on her for forgetting him? To win her back?

Meanwhile, her own lawyer also takes on Chabert's side of the case, trying to broker a compromise, before word leaks out and all involved are ruined in scandal. (Fabrice Luchini is great as the lawyer who's motives are always a little mysterious).

An interesting, subtle study of what's really of value in life.

My only complaint is that some of the Machiavellian machinations are a little obviously played by both Ardant's character and her greedy, wormy new husband, who values a peerage over marriage, love or family. Somehow that artifice makes the film a bit less emotionally powerful than it might be. But I'd certainly see it again.

Eerie and Brilliant

[Falco-8 · 11 April 1999]

This film will be variously be described in critical summaries as either a historical drama or dramatic tragedy. It is neither. It is a profoundly unsettling ghost story, as luridly horrifying as any classic film of the supernatural. It left me contemplating the permanence of loss that fate can decree for an individual as well as with an image of death more chillingly authentic than anything I have ever experienced in film or print.

Our "ghost" is one Colonel Chabert, a seedy and unpleasant vagrant who materializes in the streets of post Napoleonic Paris to solicit the services of a deliciously clever lawyer to legally prove his identity and therefore claim the legacy of his once considerable estate. 9 years previously, the Colonel had been mistaken for dead after the bitter winter battle of Eylau in 1807. Stripped naked and buried in a mass grave with hundreds of others, Chabert managed to claw his way out of the grave and recovers with the aid of local villagers. Now, after nine years of poverty and semi lucidity {brought about at least partly by the grievous head wound he received which has never fully healed} he has returned to find his wife remarried and his fortune being used to keep her in comfort as well as financing her new husband's political ambitions. It is this bleak situation that has him seeking out a smoothly Machiavellian lawyer who also happens to be his wife's attorney. The brilliant machinations of this lawyer will put the long suffering Chabert within reach of his goal, yet will also raise in his mind and ours a disturbing question: Did Chabert cheat deaths physical grip, only to realize ultimately that it had swallowed his soul, his very being, everything that made Chabert Chabert, and leave him with ethereal memories and an empty husk of a body? I will let the viewers of this film come to their own conclusions about that question.

To make such an emotional impact, most everything about a film must click in just right and this is no exception. The performances are no less than brilliant. Fanny Ardent hits all the marks as Chaberts scheming yet all too human wife. Fabrice Luchini almost steals the show with his searingly precise depiction of the masterly lawyer Derville. As for Chabert, Gerard Depardieu's is a pure manifestation of brilliance. An acting coach could probably break down his performance into instructive segments illustrating how to truly engender character thru subtle juxtapositions of gesture and voice. As an audience though, you never once think about what a great job Depardieu is doing, you are too interested in where he is going to take you next. A strong cry of "Auter!" also to Writer Director Yves Angelo for his sure handed story telling and a "Bravo!" to the exquisitely rich lensing of Bernard Autic.

If you start watching this film and feel my term of "Ghost story" is inaccurate, be patient and wait for the late night first interview between Chabert and Derville. Listen to Chabert describe the sensations of death. And then try to sleep well that night...

A faithful adaptation with a B-class direction

[johnpierrepatrick · 6/10 · 9 May 2020]

Colonel Chabert is a very classic movie. I mean in term of direction, nothing is really noticeable, and is more worthy of a TV movie than 7th art. That being said, the adaptation is quite faithful to the novel, and well told. Main theme of how everyone tries to find its place in the society is still a valid and modern theme, that did not actuallly change that much since that time.

The acting is particularly good (and earns the movie its 6th star), with a splendid cast: Depardieu, Luchini (excellent and for once in a sober play), Ardant, Dussolier are all recognized actors and giving a quality performance here.

Excellent

[ferdinand1932 · 9/10 · 30 March 2009]

This is an unfortunately unrecognized classic.

The look is superb, the design, costumes etc are flawless, the post battle scenes and the cavalry charge are both chilling and exciting.

The characters are vivid and really human. Ardent is right and Fabrice Luchini as the lawyer Derville steals the movie with his clever pedantic rodent-like performance, delighting in the ups and downs of others' misfortunes. Depardieu is good but perhaps too large a presence for this role.

Where the film really excels is the story and also its changes from Balzac's novella. Those changes are editorial in that Balzac has lots of discussion on society and this film breaths with characters. Nevertheless Yves Angelo has retained the key ingredient, not just the missing man trying to regain his place in society but every character has to find their place in society: the Comte Ferraud is trying to buy a peerage, his wife (Ardent) comes from a lowly birth and when she was married to Colonel Chabert they achieved their position in the turbulence of post-revolutionary France. Everyone has something to lose in terms of status and that makes for a good drama as their objectives are in conflict with each other.

It also feels very modern: money is critical to buy status to reach power, but someone can go down as quickly as they go up. Derville enjoys the strategy, he has seen the worst of people he says to Chabert when he takes the case. This speech's original place is at the end of the novella as Balzac sums up the human comedy with huge irony.

brilliant film in all respects

[jchamet · 10/10 · 31 May 2006]

Most of other reactions by subscribers to this service were very apt, although that some found it slow or ambiguous puzzled me. Rather than ambiguous, it was complex and multi-layered in its meanings. One can see it as anti-war, because of the opening and closing scenes, and the folly of pretended grandeur, as how wonderful the cavalry men looked as they prepared for the great charge at Eylau, contrasted with its so horrible and disturbing conclusion, when we see the bloody uniforms, the boyish dead, etc--but chiefly, I see the film as about a moral man in an immoral society. At the end Chabert chooses retreat from the corrupt post-Napoleonic French world and opts for the simple pleasures provided by Derville (who himself is saved by his recognition of Chabert's basic decency and the morality of his choice of renunciation)--white bread, cheese, some wine and tobacco--over the riches he leaves to his wife, and her and society's dishonor. In her case, we can see the film as also feminist, in the position of women at that time, in which the only weapons Mme Chabert has are her charm, beauty, wiles and, ultimately, money.

Gloomy

[dierregi · 4/10 · 12 June 2021]

Despite the enthusiasm from most reviewers, I found the film dark and depressing, populated by unlikable characters.

The opening scene is eerie and shocking enough to make you think the rest of the movie will deliver one powerful punch after the other. Instead, it deflates. The plot moves forward 10 years from the horrific Eylau battlefield, and straight to the restored, stuffy and boring "ancien regime" of 1817.

Colonel Chabert, officially given for dead during the battle, is back in Paris and trying to get back his money and perhaps his - disgustingly greedy - wife Rose, who in the meantime remarried with a social climber and had two children with him.

Ardant plays the horrible Rose character with a perennial smile on her face and I didn't like her acting. Rose just refuses to acknowledge her first husband to keep his money and the legitimacy of her children.

Luchini plays slimy lawyer Derville who takes on Chabert case, even if most consider the colonel an impostor (he's not, that is established clearly from the star).

Didn't like Luchini, either. He played the part with a glazed stare and an annoying unflappability. Since I am not a Depardieu fan, not much was left for me ....Maybe I am just biased and this is a great film, but it did nothing for me.

Good, on-target adaptation of Balzac

[Gmike · 8/10 · 27 June 1999]

Colonel Chabert is one of the best adaptations from novel to screen I have seen in the movies. It combines the realism of French cinema with excellent characterisation, from Depardieu's lost Chabert to Fabrice Luchini's proud Lawyer to Fanny Ardant's complex widow. The movie has wonderful dimension, as you might expect from a top cinematographer such as Yves Angelo. The characters keep this movie in gear and although a bit slow in the beginning, picks up pace and is a fine movie by the time it reaches the finish.

"Le silence de la mort"

[brogmiller · 8/10 · 5 July 2020]

Award winning cinematographer Yves Angelo makes his directorial debut here with this adaptation of one of the novels that make up Honoré de Balzac's monumental 'La Comedie Humaine', a 'natural history' of post-Napoleonic French society.

Not a few cinematographers have tried their hand at directing with decidedly uneven results but Angelo does a first rate job here and has the blessing of an exemplary cast.

It concerns an army veteran, long presumed dead, who returns in the hope of regaining his fortune, his status and his wife. A former prostitute, she has since become a Countess and is unwilling to jeopardise the social position she has acquired with his money..........

This is in fact the sixth film adaptation of Balzac's novella and the character of Colonel Chabert has been played most notably by Werner Krauss, Raimu and Vladislav Strzhelchik. At the time this current version was made there was surely no French actor around with box-office power who was capable of following in their footsteps other than Gerard Depardieu whose performance is utterly mesmerising. Not for nothing has he been referred to by Yves Montand as 'THE actor of his generation.' Playing the morally ambiguous Comtesse Ferraud is the wondrous Fanny Ardant with whom Depardieu made 'The Woman next door' thirteen years earlier and once again their scenes together are riveting.

André Dusollier as Comte Ferraud is as always good value and the characterisation of the lawyer Derville by Fabrice Luchini is well-drawn although his mannered delivery can be rather tiresome.

As with all of Balzac's novels the multi-faceted characters live and breathe whilst the theme of how a hero of War can become an outcast of Peace is tragically timeless.

Whilst this film is not a classic it is absorbing and at times distinctly unsettling. Rather than use a specially composed score Angelo has cleverly used classical pieces notably Schubert's final piano sonata and Beethoven's trio of which the title 'Ghost' is singularly appropriate to Chabert's reappearance as if from the dead.

It has first class production values and continues the superlative tradition of costume drama at which French film-makers excel.

What happens when you come back from the dead?

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 9 April 2017]

The French movie Le colonel Chabert was shown in the U.S. as Colonel Chabert (1994). Yves Angelo directed it. It's the story of a brave, highly decorated cavalry officer in Napolean's army, who is left for dead on the battlefield. He leads a horrible existence for ten years, until he finally manages to return to France. In his absence, his wife has remarried, and now has two children. She also has all of his fortune. Who is going to believe Chabert's story's? Chabert finds someone who believes him. It's the almost superhuman Attorney Derville. The problem is that Derville is also the attorney for Chabert's former wife.

Gerard Depardieu plays Colonel Jabert. He is a consummate actor. We know it and Director Angelo knows it. Fanny Ardant is the former wife. When she's on screen, you can't take your eyes off her. She isn't beautiful in the classic Hollywood way; she's beautiful in the French way. She has strong features that tell us that she's competent and capable. When Chabert asks Derville to describe her, he uses just one word--superb.

Believe it or not, I think the best acting is displayed by Fabrice Luchini as Derville. His part is complex, because Derville is an unlikable character. He's snobbish, arrogant, and absolutely certain about his professional talents. Luchini becomes Derville. It's worth seeing the movie just to watch him act.

We saw this movie on the small screen. (Actually on--gasp--VHS.). It worked very well. Colonel Chabert has a so-so IMDb rating of 7.0. It's better than that. Find it and watch it.

Disgusted with the world of money: is it worth being a hero?

[PlatonicShadows · 10/10 · 29 October 2021]

Why risk your life in the battlefield for your country if all you achieve is helping social hyenas gain what they are after: money and social climbing. Great adaptation of Balzac's novel. Balzac knew the world of post-Napoleonic era well. Everything was for sale. Colonel Chabert who would renounce all his entitlements, except his honorable name, for his money-hungry ex-prostitute turned countess ex-wife, disgusted with the world of new hyenas, decides to retreat to the more truthful world of a mental asylum.

Disappointing adaptation of a great story

[volokh · 25 July 2002]

Le Colonel Chabert is a great novella -- you can read it in a couple of hours. It's better than this disappointing film, which moves slowly and ends differently, less satisfyingly, and more confusingly. A lot of good Balzac dialogue was missing, and the extra details added were unnecessary. Balzac this ain't.