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Credits
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Summary
When his wife dies in childbirth, a proud aristocrat refuses
to accept that his new offspring is a girl. He names her Oscar and
brings her up as a boy, sharing her childhood with André, the son
of a domestic servant. Twenty years later, the Lady Oscar gains the
position as personal guard to the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, whilst
André works in the royal stables. At the royal court,
Oscar gains many admirers, to the chagrin of André, who is hopelessly
in love with her. Oscar insists that she and André belong
to different worlds, but then André enlightens her that her world
is about to disappear, swept aside by a national revolution...Review
Lady Oscar is a little known work directed by one
of France’s most influential film directors, Jacques Demy. It was
commissioned by a Japenese production company and is based on a hugely
popular Japanese strip-cartoon. Among the requirements placed on
Demy was that the film be made in English, so he cast mainly English actors,
although the fairly tight budget prevented him from hiring any big names.
Although the film is noticeably handicapped by its sponsor’s brief, Demy manages to create a colourful, engaging film, brought to life by his customary fluid photography. It is similar with his earlier triumphs such as Les parapluies de Cherbourg and Les demoiselles de Rochefort in that it transposes a real-life situation into a fantasy world where everything appears pretty and harmless, although a glimmer of tragedy can be glimpsed beneath this veneer. Unfortunately, the absurdity of the plot, dialogue and characters makes this Demy-esque artifice appear more nauseating than endearing. Most off-putting is the fact that every character in the film, even the lowliest street urchin, speaks with a crisp English accent that could cut butter from fifty yards. Generally, the quality of the acting is mediocre, although Christina Bohm’s fluffy bunny Marie-Anotinette is quite enjoyable. Catriona Mac’s portrayal Oscar is so wooden and devoid of character that you would hardly notice she was in the film at all. Overall, the film is a disappointment. It lacks the purity of Demy’s fairy tale cinematography and the rigour and depth of a serious period drama. There is an attempt to draw some sense of irony out of the inevitability of the fall of the court of Versailles, but, hampered by weak characterisation and some risible dialogue, it just fails to ring true. The film’s comic book origins are all too apparent. © James Travers 2001 |
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