Swann in Love – (1984; French, subtitles) Adapted from Marcel Proust’s first book of Remembrance of Things Past (A la recherché du temps perdu – of which this film represents a portion of the first book, Swann’s Way, the only section of this lengthy work of French literature I’ve managed to read) in which Charles Swann (Jeremy Irons) looks back upon his memories as if they were a closet full of treasured artifacts to be marveled upon.

He is a man of enormous erudition in the arts, a Christian convert of Jewish heritage, obsessively in love with a beautiful courtesan, Odette de Crécy (Ornella Muti), who reminds him of a Botticelli face in a painting in the Sistine Chapel. “My love is an illness,” he confesses. His friends, especially Baron de Charlus, caution him that to marry such a woman would seriously compromise his social standing.

Oriane, a female friend in the family of the upper echelon of Parisian society, jokes about how boring her life is without Charles, saying she sometimes believes it would be better to be dead, “but death may be just as boring.” Charles is conflicted, and Odette, a free spirit, frequently comments on his reserve with her in public. “What’s terrible is what one can’t imagine,” Charles says. He questions Odette at length about her past, especially her sexual relations with women. Nevertheless, he cannot resist her. She says of a sonata they both admire, “It’s the national anthem of our love.” Charles wants to save her from the company she keeps, their stupidity, vulgar humor, and vile tastes that mix popular arts with promiscuity.

Years after Charles and Odette have married and had a daughter, Charlus ruefully admits to Charles that he regrets his wasted life subverted to preoccupation with illusions and fantasy rather than ambition and dreams, saying that all of the arts and valuable collectibles are but a substitute for genuine human affection.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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