‘Chambermaid’ Serves Up Amusing Fable

“The Chambermaid” is a deliciously amusing celebration of the power of romantic imagination from Bigas Luna, a Spanish master of sly wit and psychological insight. This light, consistently original and delightful period fable is the kind of film in which sophisticated European filmmakers excel, but they don’t come along as frequently as they once did.

A French production, it marks the largest-scale film yet from Luna, best known for “Jamon, Jamon,” which helped establish Javier Bardem as an international star.

The film’s opening sequence could be straight out of “Germinal,” only the setting is a bleak steel mill community instead of a company mining town. For three years the winner of an absurdly grueling triathlon held by the Simeon Foundry in northern France is the handsome young Horty (Olivier Martinez, star of the equally romantic “The Horseman on the Roof”). Since the year is 1912 the prize is a week’s stay in Southampton to witness the launching of the Titanic.

Cad that he is, foundry President Simeon (Didier Bezace) tells Horty that so costly is the prize that it is for him only--which means Simeon will have no interference in his intended play for Horty’s pretty wife, Zoe (Romane Bohringer).

No sooner is Horty ensconced in unaccustomed splendor in a Southampton hotel than he receives a knock on his door from a beautiful young woman, Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), who tells him she is a chambermaid on the Titanic and has no place to stay. When Horty returns home, telling his foundry pals of the beautiful chambermaid, Zoe and his friends believe that he has been unfaithful; he, in turn, believes an unexpected promotion out of furnaces and into the foundry office is due to his wife letting Simeon have his way with her.

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At once “The Chambermaid” becomes the story of the tough-minded and determined Zoe’s struggle to rescue her marriage and of Horty’s discovery of his storytelling gifts. Soon it matters not whether he and the chambermaid actually had an affair or not; his barroom cronies and soon their wives as well crave escape from their grim, hard existences by demanding to hear him weave tales of his fleeting romance with the beauty, now presumed drowned in the wake of the Titanic sinking.

This thoroughly engaging film takes yet another turn when a veteran traveling player (Aldo Maccione) comes to town to watch Horty tell his story and turns his routine into a professional act that can be taken on the road to wow audiences everywhere. (This new, improved version turns Horty into a Titanic survivor, telling in heart-rending fashion of his inability to save his love--a reverse of the Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet predicament in “Titanic.”)

What actually did--or did not--happen between Horty and Marie becomes less and less important, even if Horty risks exposure as a fake, because it’s plainly apparent that Horty, faithful or otherwise, has fallen in love with Marie and the naked honesty of his emotion is what rivets audiences. Indeed, Zoe, in her striving to win back her husband’s heart, insists on becoming part of the act, playing the drowning Marie. The way Luna works out Horty and Zoe’s fate is inspired, clever and wise.

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It’s hard to see how Luna’s cast could be better, with special honors to Bohringer’s loving wife, who finds herself competing for her husband with a woman who lives on only in his imagination. In every aspect and detail the film pleases, with a special nod to Alberto Iglesias’ beguiling score.

When the distributors discovered that the film’s original title, “The Chambermaid on the Titanic” was misleading to American audiences, they shortened it to merely “The Chambermaid.” By any name this Samuel Goldwyn release is a pure pleasure.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film has scenes of considerable sensuality; some language, adult themes.

‘The Chambermaid’

Olivier Martinez: Horty

Romane Bohringer: Zoe

Aitana Sanchez-Gijon: Marie

Didier Bezace: Simeon

Aldo Maccione: Zeppe

A Samuel Goldwyn Films release of a Franco-Italo-Spanish co-production: UGC YM/La Sept Cinema/France 2 Cinema/Rodeo Drive/Mate Production/Tornasol Films/Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Director Bigas Luna. Producers Yves Marmion and Daniel Toscan du Plantier. Screenplay by Luna, Cuca Canals, Jean-Louis Benoit; adapted from the novel by Didier Decoin. Cinematographer Patrick Blossier. Editor Kenout Peltier. Costumes France Squarciapino. Music Alberto Iglesias. Production designers Walter Caprara and Bruno Cesari. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

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