The Earrings of Madame de...

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)

a film by Max Ophüls

I had great expectations about The Earrings of Madame de... Although I found the cinematography of this film brilliant and its narrative really strong and creative, I had problems empathizing with the characters. The love, the hate, the jealousy and all the emotions in the characters seemed to me covered with a veil of aloofness that made their passions really hard to believe.

But don't get me wrong, this is a really good historical movie. It is filmed with extreme care for detail and creative use of the camera. The story of love and passion that is unleashed when Madame de... sells a pair of earrings that her husband gave her for their marriage is entertaining and beautiful. I really liked the appearance of Vittorio De Sica, one of my favorite directors in the role of an Italian ambassador, and I like the composition of the sequences and the details on the clothing and the space of the character, but I kept waiting for that moment of extreme emotion that this love story was announcing, but that moment -for me- never came.

This movie is a great portrait of the life of aristocrats in Europe before the World War I. A life detached from reality and full of excess, this film reminded me a lot of Madame Bovary. For me two things about this movie are worth seeing it. On the first hand, the montage of the ballroom scenes is excellent, the movement of the camera, the composition of the scene and the narrative importance of the sequence are stylish and effective. On the other hand, the first scene of this movie is technically brilliant, the kind of scene that is worth tribute of other directors and that shows the genious of Ophuls and lingers in my mind, even when I was so cold hearted about the rest of the movie.