Corny costume adventure involving Austrian spies in pursuit of Italian expatriates in post-Napoleonic France, presently in the grips of a cholera epidemic. (All you need to know of the history: the Italians are the good guys, the Austrians the bad.) The casting of a vain vapid male-model type, Olivier Martinez, in the hero's role anchors the movie inescapably in the harbor of cheap paperback romance fiction; and the pursed-lipped, flaring-nostrilled Juliette Binoche is not a lot better as the intrepid noblewoman. The most engaging character, just passing through, is the Cat on a Hot Tile Roof; and the plentiful crows, heralds of death, intermittently take wing to a loftier poetic realm. Based on a Jean Giono novel; with Jean Yanne, François Cluzet, Pierre Arditi, and an uncredited Gerard Depardieu; directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau. (1995) — Duncan Shepherd
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