(rated PG-13, 123 mins.)
From the autobiography of Grace Elliott, comes the story of a beautiful English woman (Lucy Russell) who lived in Paris during the French Revolution. Her memoirs center on her lover the Duke of Orleans (Jean Claude Dreyfus) trapped in the middle of the bloodshed and guillotining. While the Lady is a Royalist, he is a leading Revolutionary, an activist. Together this Tracy-Hepburn team, tell their story as human inserts on a Paris streetscape chosen by director Eric Rohmer instead of building expensive sets. The illustrations eerily make a surreal effect as though the heartbeat — the people, stand heads and tails above their literal backdrop of a revolution. Managing to feel barely authentic yet really alive the story rolls out slowly, almost losing the audience (as European films sometimes take awhile to kick in) then slowly, steadily builds to a second half where the blood begins to flow both in the hearts and on the screen. Sophisticated and well done for the more acquired palate.
