Le Colonel Chabert

Gérard Depardieu stars as Colonel Chabert, in Yves Angelo’s film based on the Balzac novel about the changes brought to French society by revolution.

Le Colonel Chabert is a fine costume drama where Depardieu plays Chabert a French soldier who served under Napoleon in 1807 and was thought to have died in battle. Managing to crawl out from a pile of corpses, and after wandering through the French countryside for ten years he returns to find his wife (Fanny Ardant) has remarried. Taking an aristocrat as her new husband (André Dussolier), she uses her fortune to further his career, much to Chabert's dismay. Seeking back his old life and estate, he enlists the help of a sympathetic lawyer in the form of Fabrice Luchini as they take the wife to court to re establish his assets.

Based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac this is a quietly intense film is directed by Yves Angelo, the cinematographer whose credits include The Accompanist and Un Coeur en Hiver. The film reunites Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant, who previously bought much heat to the married couple they played in Truffaut's Woman Next Door.

This drama is not about two former lovers finding each other after a tragic separation, but rather about a manipulative pair both vying for control of a fortune that each has a legitimate claim upon. Depardieu cites his interest in the role as being able to play in a tragedy and performs with charming subtlety that illuminates this historical drama. Peppered with cinematographic splendour heavily influenced by Angelo's past experiences, the mise-en-scène never upstages Depardieu, Ardant or Luchini, all of whom offer convincing portraits of their characters.

Don't miss Buffet Froid, Camille Claudel and Les Acteurs as part of Cinémoi's Gérard Depardieu weekend.