A Timeless Portrait of Marriage and Maturation in ‘Les Destinees’

With the sweeping yet intimate, profoundly moving “Les Destinees,” director Olivier Assayas has made a great film from Jacques Chardonne’s classic novel. Although far different in tone, time, place and temperament, it brings to mind “Gone With the Wind” in its depth and scope and in its love story, which unfolds over a turbulent era.

As a period piece it is faultlessly evocative, and it boasts superb portrayals from Emmanuelle Beart, Charles Berling, Isabelle Huppert and a large supporting cast. Rich in emotion and ideas and in its social and historical context, “Les Destinees” makes most contemporary movies seem undernourished by comparison.

A French Protestant, Chardonne was a descendant of cognac merchants on his father’s side; his mother was a Haviland, whose porcelain factory in Limoges remains world-famous. Set in the Charente region of France, the film opens in 1900 with the arrival of the exquisite young Pauline (Beart) in the rural town of Barbizac to live with her uncle Philippe Pommerel (Olivier Perrier), a perennially struggling cognac merchant, after the death of her father.

Pauline is a forthright, modern young woman who is instantly attracted to her cousin Jean Barnery (Berling), the local minister, who has just sent off his wife, Nathalie (Huppert), and their infant daughter to live in Limoges.

Although Nathalie insists that nothing happened between her and an aggressive lady-killer (Remi Martin, no kidding), Jean feels she has been hopelessly compromised and fears for his own reputation as a clergyman. In the case of the Barnerys and their friends and relatives, a 19th century sense of propriety is greatly intensified by their belief that as Protestants they must always appear above reproach to the Catholic majority. Feeling increasingly stifled and seeing no possible future with Jean, Pauline takes off for Paris to support herself as an office secretary.

Unforeseen developments, however, propel Jean to do the unthinkable, given the time and place, which is to divorce Nathalie, which triggers a sequence of events so wrenching as to make him vulnerable to tuberculosis. Pauline reenters his life determined that he should regain his health, which means accompanying him as his second wife to Switzerland, where they live an idyllic life in a log chalet overlooking a lake.

Their years of serene happiness end with the death of Jean’s father, when there really is no one else in the Barnery family qualified to take over its porcelain factory.

Although Jean returns to Limoges purely out of a sense of duty, he more than has what it takes: a decisive nature, an acute flair for design, sure and ruthless managerial instincts and a visionary sense of industrial enterprise.

It’s at this point that “Les Destinees” shifts into high gear, as Jean, a perfectionist like his father before him, gets caught up in his work and is faced with the coming Great War, increasing competition from German and Japanese porcelain manufacturers, and the advent of the Great Depression. These are the years that truly test Jean and Pauline’s love, and the film becomes a touching yet rigorous portrait of married life.

The film’s central figure is Jean, whose perceptive, tough-minded sister Julie (Dominique Reymond) describes him as “a philosopher, a poet and a mystic” capable of realizing his injustice to his first wife and aware that he sooner or later will a pay a price for it. In the course of his adult life Jean, like Pauline, is capable of reflection and honest self-assessment, and they mature before our eyes. Both possess a social conscience, and Jean knows that the drastic steps he must take from time to time to save the family business will incur the hatred of his workers.

“Les Destinees” is fascinating as it reveals how our grandmothers and great-grandmothers’ treasured china was made long before fast-acting electric ovens, but even more in the way it reveals the daily challenges and chronic uncertainties of running a worldwide business. As a popular entertainment form, the movies more often take the point of view of hard-pressed workers, so “Les Destinees” is provocative and illuminating as a portrait of a captain of industry.

Pauline and Nathalie are a study in contrasts. “Obsession petrifies her,” Julie says of her former sister-in-law, who allows bitterness to consume her while Pauline learns to look beyond her youthful concept of romantic love and place Jean’s needs for loving support ahead of her own. All three principals age with exceptional subtlety and authenticity, qualities that characterize the film’s costume and production design. The film begins with women with hourglass figures and in full skirts that give way to the increasingly simple and comfortable clothes pioneered by Chanel. Similarly, often dark, elaborate Second Empire interiors yield to ‘20s drawing rooms filled with sunlight and 18th century antique accent pieces as advocated by decorator Elsie De Wolfe.

Pauline and Nathalie age with a natural gracefulness, but Jean’s appearance reflects the deeper inner changes. The initial prim set of his mouth gives way to a more handsome appearance with the happiness Pauline brings--and the addition of a mustache. As the years pass, his appearance takes on an increasingly distinguished quality.

Assayas and his co-writer Jacques Fieschi have taken pains to preserve swaths of Chardonne’s elegant dialogue. Chardonne’s characters are all masters of the well-turned phrase, which gives a great deal of pithiness to a film that lasts three hours yet never drags.

“Les Destinees” represents a dramatic departure for Assayas, whose films are typically intimate, often involving several people in modest, even cramped, quarters. Assayas has preserved the intense emotional intimacy of which he is a master while working on a vastly larger canvas and spanning three tumultuous decades. The result is a work that in its sensibility is as classical as it is contemporary.

Unrated. Times guidelines: some sensuality but suitable for mature older children.

‘Les Destinees’

Emmanuelle Beart ... Pauline

Charles Berling ... Jean Barnery

Isabelle Huppert ... Nathalie

Olivier Perrier ... Philippe Pommerel

Dominique Reymond ... Julie Barnery Desca

A Wellspring release of a Franco-Swiss co-production of Arena Films/TF1 Films Production/CAB Productions with the participation of Canal Plus/Cofimage 11/Arcade. Director Olivier Assayas. Producer Bruni Pesery. Screenplay by Jacques Fieschi and Assayas; based on the novel “Les Destinees Sentimentales” by Jacques Chardonne. Cinematographer Eric Gautier. Editor Luc Barnier. Musical coordination Nicolas Bomsal. Costumes Anais Romand. Set designer Katia Wyszkop. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 3 hours.

At selected theaters.