Volker Schlöndorff's Un Amour de Swann is one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. The set is breathtakingly wonderful. Jeremy Irons who plays Charles Swann, often played in period drama movies and he looks like he truly belongs to that time. Ornella Muti looks a bit plump here that those who have never seen her before will think she is ugly, like Swann himself who thought Odette was ugly when he first saw her, until he realizes her resemblance to Botticelli's Zephora, Jetro's daughter, seen in the Sistine Chapel.
This movie is not easy to follow for there are lots of flashbacks and I found myself wondering whether the scene I was seeing was the past or the present. I was glad that several months ago I read one part of Marcel Proust's Swann in Love as retold by Stéphane Heuet. Interesting to see various characters in the story, like Swann's driver, Remi, who grunts under his breath when he is irritated by his master. Swann's circle of friends, although rich, many of them don't care how to behave, like Mme Verdurin who laughs so hard that she dislocates her jaw. It was fun, though, to see them. Some of them worry too much about appearance, that wearing red shoes with black gown is equal to a disaster. Jews aren't liked, like shown in the scenes where a young Jew is refused in his preferred part of a restaurant and Baron de Charlus touches a servant's nose.
My favourite part is Swann's despair after Odette refuses his offer to take her home and goes with Swann's rival, Forcheville, instead. Swann is angry to himself because of his great love to Odette comes too late and of the humiliation. When Swann tells Charlus that his love for Odette is over, Charlus asks him when he will marry her. It's not easy to marry a woman with a dark past, that you can hear many men say when they see her walking by, "That is Madame Swann. I have slept with her once."
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