7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful- A Sadly Forgotten Gem, 14 October 1999 Author minstrel This movie is one of the best films the great Italian director, Ettore Scola has ever made. It also has a fantastic cast, all doing a great job, but, is seems the late Massimo Troisi does outshine them all, with a stunning performance as Pulcinella, a Sancho Panza sort of clown. This fantasy, dream-like tale, is based on the famous book by the same name by Théophile Gautier, the French author. This is actually the 5th movie adaptation of this novel, which must tell you something about its force to attract generations of film makers. Vincent Pérez plays Baron of Sigognac, a young royal, whose quest for material wealth brings him true love and revelations on the nature of this world. The plot themes are somewhat related to Stoppard's excellent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - both uses the traveling players to explore the nature of the human condition. One might also recall Bergman's Seventh Seal, but Fracassa is more akin of Stoppard's light hearted, witty, approach to those grave subjects. A truly exceptional, beautiful and entertaining film, a long standing achievement for all involved, surely better than Il Postino, though, sadly, much less known. Surely overdue for re-release
Professor Henri Faust, retiring after 50 years as an alchemist in a circa-1700 university, despairs at still knowing nothing of the true secrets of nature...whereupon his old acquaintance Mephistopheles, servant of Lucifer, appears and grants him youth and a new life. But with youth, Faust's interest is diverted from science to women. And Mephistopheles, who has taken on the guise of the elderly Faust that was, sets many snares for his young friend's slippery soul... Written by Rod Crawford
Paris, 1315. The Tour de Nesle, a guard tower on the banks of the Seine, has become a symbol of mystery and fear. Each morning, at its base, the bodies of handsome young aristocrats are found floating in the river, all butchered by sword or arrow. One evening, two noblemen, Buridan and Philippe d'Aulnay, find themselves in the infamous tower, lured there on the expectation of a night of unbridled passion. Little do they realise that they are to be the next victims of a woman who is determined to take revenge against all men - Margaret of Burgundy, the present Queen of France. Although Philippe is killed, Buridan escapes, and intends to blackmail the Queen. Unless she makes him her prime minister, he will expose her crimes to Philippe's brother and her husband, King Louis X. When she moves to eliminate Burdan, Margaret makes a terrible discovery... In the twilight years of his long and pretty uneven career, the great avant-garde film director Abel Gance made a number of films which, whilst not as grand and artistically inspired as his early silent masterpieces (La Roue (1923), Napoléon (1927)), still compared very favourably with the work of his contemporaries. Of these, La Tour de Nesle is a film that still stands up remarkably well today - an ambitious historical drama based on the famous 1832 play by Alexandre Dumas. It makes a nice companion piece to Gance's subsequent historical romp, Cyrano et d'Artagnan (1964). Needless to say, the film isn't to be commended on its historical accuracy. As any historian will tell you, the Alexandre Dumas version of French history is wildly fanciful, to say the least. However, this doesn't prevent La Tour de Nesle from being an entertaining and, at times, highly poignant, piece of cinema. Whilst the characterisation and dialogue leave much to be desired, the plot (a murky tale of cruel revenge and political intrigue) is gripping, and the film's artistic design is exceptional for a film of this period. Gance brings a strangely expressionistic touch to his use of colour and shade, something which adds to the darkly sinister nature of the plot, whilst imbuing the film with a striking sense of historical realism.
A propos, Gance's assistant director Nelly Kaplan makes her screen début in a small role, shortly before she herself embarked on a successful film making career.