The Alliance Française French Film Festival is back for another year, bringing the finest and most enjoyable selection of movies to Australian shores.
Among this rank is The Count of Monte Cristo, the first French adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas classic in over 50 years.
The film comes off the back of the wildly successful and critically acclaimed The Three Musketeers duology, which was the first French adaptation in three decades.
Dimitri Rassam and Jérôme Seydoux, producers of both Dumas adaptations, have found themselves onto a winner by adapting the beloved novels for French audiences.
The return of Dumas’ classics to cinemas has been extremely well received, with all three films selling millions of tickets and are critically acclaimed and The Count of Monte Cristo is yet another showcase of French talent presented to a wider audience.
The Count of Monte Cristo presents a pared back version of the sprawling narrative of the book and has replaced some names and character relations, primarily changing the character of Benedetto.
The film joins sailor Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney) as he breaks rank and rescues a woman who is adrift in choppy waters off the coast of Marseilles, eventually being rewarded for his bravery by being named captain, leading to previous captain Danglars (Patrick Mille) being fired.
Things are further complicated after he announces his engagement to his much richer and more influential friend Fernand de Morcerf (Bastien Bouillon), who secretly pines after his cousin and Dantès’ fiancée Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier).
He suddenly finds himself at the centre of a conspiracy after he is arrested on the day of his wedding and falsely accused of being a Bonapartist, leading to his imprisonment.
Locked in a tiny cell in Château d’If, Dantès languishes until his wall is broken down by fellow prisoner Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino), who says he has also been falsely imprisoned.
Befriending the Abbé, Dantès becomes worldly, learning Italian as well as science, mathematics, culture, and about the Knights Templar’s treasure, which is hidden on the island of Monte Cristo.
After the Abbé’s death, Dantès escapes in the body bag and swims away from the prison, going back to his home and learning Mercédès has married Morcerf and his father starved to death after Dantès’ death was faked.
Now resolute on getting revenge on those who wronged him, he reinvents himself as the Count of Monte Cristo, adopting two similarly vengeful wards, André (Julien de Saint Jean) and Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei).
Back in Paris, a hardened Dantès enacts the desire he has fostered over 20 years: he is going to kill those who orchestrated his imprisonment, ingratiating himself and his wards into Parisian high society.
The Count of Monte Cristo shows the human desire to get payback on those we feel have done us wrong but as bystanders to Dantès anger, the audience finds themselves hoping he does not actually do what he sets out to.
Revenge is the centrepiece of the film as it is not only Dantès desire to see the downfall of three specific men, but it is not unchecked: Haydée loses faith in the plot and there is the constant fear one of the three will take it too far.
But there are questions and checks for this too because how far is too far when the lives have been ruined for—at least in Dantès’ case—frivolous reasons and personal gain.
Death is also at the centre of the film, as the emotional impact of the Abbé’s and Dantès’ fathers deaths hang heavy, as does the apprehension the Count will shed more blood in his quest.
The film is a highly personal look at what can happen when people are sacrificed for selfish reasons and the emotional impact of being a pawn in someone else’s selfish pursuits.
Niney portrays Dantès feelings at all stages of the film with gravitas and a quiet determination, excelling when it comes to playing the different characters the aggrieved sailor creates with ease and yet each feels like his own character.
The contrast between the Count and Dantès is palpable and laid out bare, even as the two characters look very physically alike and yet starkly different all at once, as even the way Niney holds himself changes depending on whose face he is wearing.
Niney is the standout of this film but special mention must go to Saint Jean, who plays André and the confected creation Prince Andrea Cavalcanti with earnestness.
Still a relative newcomer, Saint Jean ably shows the progress of André from a thief and street rat to a man who understands high society etiquette and is able to operate not only fluently, but in turn duplicitously and kindly in it, depending on who is in his sights.
Even coming in at three hours, The Count of Monte Cristo does not and realistically cannot contain everything the book contains and changes to the story have been made for clarity and enhanced emotional impact.
In this adaptation, the secret son of prosecutor Villefort is named André instead of Benedetto and his mother, Villefort’s mistress, who later becomes Danglars’ wife, is now called Victoria instead of Hermine.
The Count of Monte Cristo is an epic in the true sense of the word—it is grand in scale, sets, costuming, and themes, allowing for a full understanding of Dumas’ epic to translate seamlessly onto the screen and embody what a trip to the cinema ought to be.
The Count of Monte Cristo is rated M and is part of the Alliance Française French Film Festival showing now at Palace Cinemas and Roseville Cinema.