| A sweepingly romantic and historic tale about two 19th-century writers and their trials in work, travel, and love, CHILDREN OF THE CENTURY is a daring period piece from director Diane Kurys. The love affair between George Sand (Juliette Binoche) and Alfred de Musset (Benoit Magimel) is brought to life in fits and bursts of creative impulses, passionate interludes, and emotional blowouts. Writers who met in 1833, Sand and de Musset were both well-established in their careers. Sand`s feminism, masculine style of dress, and boldness rendered her works utterly readable for their controversy if not their quality. Likewise, de Musset`s poetry was highly regarded in literary circles. Unfortunately, Sand was married (to Casimir Dudevant, who she left when she moved to Paris alone) with two children, and so her affair with de Musset--like her fierce independence, liberalism, and frequent romantic trysts--was considered a scandal. But as the story unfolds, Sand remains committed to de Musset even as his words and actions spin rapidly and frightfully out of control. CHILDREN OF THE CENTURY depicts an artistic bloom in Paris and Venice in the mid-1800s, colored by the changing hues of love and grief shared between these two major creative figures. |
