Molière

This evening, we went to the eccentric little Electric Palace Cinema on Hastings’ picturesque Old Town High Street to watch Molière, last year’s French-produced film about the great comedic playwright. In the same vein as Shakespeare in Love, it fills in the lost details of a great writer’s biography with scenes and characters derived from their plays, suggesting they inspired later works, and allowing for a warm-hearted romantic comedy with well-known scenes and little references.

I found it very enjoyable. I’m only familiar with Tartuffe, but didn’t mind missing the other references, to which I was ignorant. It was a very French filme, giving itself space and time to breathe, crediting its audience with the intelligence to work various things out rather than heavily explicating every detail and being full of gentle, silly humour rather like Molière himself’s, centred on foolish people doing foolish things, painfully obvious lies and a dash of slapstick. It was also a deft and beautiful film, with an accomplished cast and exquisite sets and costumes that really evoked 17th-Century France in all its pomp and excess. The foolish aristocrat and his lessons in high art were superb farcical setpieces, and the man playing Molière was endlessly fascinating to watch – it was so easy to believe he was a natural clown who longed to be a writer of great tragedies, and could only succumb to delusions of grandeur. ‘On ne dit pas, parlez-moi en Français, mais parlez-moi dans le langue de Molière!’

I didn’t recognise any of the cast, except the girl who was Tinkerbell in the recent live-action Peter Pan who gave a really striking performance as a beautiful woman with a reputation for great wit, but who really had no great debating ability, only a sharp tongue and a willingness to insult, which as I know only too well often passes for intelligence! Nonetheless, the actors were all excellent, and it was wonderful to see that mix of comedy and tragedy, our main character often going too far and embarrassing himself, the buffoon gaining real dignity while dressed in woman’s clothing and subject to ridicule, and the climax of the action, before Molière leaves the stately home, was so sweet and elegantly done that all its saccharine was easily swallowed. It’s such a shame subtitled films like this get ignored by the mainstream, because it really was special. On the other hand, Molière really isn’t very well-known in the UK outside academic circles. Then again, nor are Marlowe, Webster, Jonson et al…

Anyway, a very enjoyable film.