I confess that I never read the original book by D. H. Lawrence but it has always seemed to me that his biggest fans were women. Whether that is an accurate evaluation I don't know and I suppose it is irrelevant but when I went to see the latest incarnation, "Lady Chatterley", I was struck by the almost entirely female audience. Perhaps because the story is one of unbearable longing, love and lust, not necessarily in that order.
In this version, director Pascale Ferran seems determined to bore the audience to death for the first hour of this almost three hour extravaganza. He feels the need to show us every flower, tree, leaf and droplet of water, over and over and over, lingering on each shot for what seems an eternity. I felt the outside world calling me but I resisted and remained in my seat, with greatly mixed feelings at the end.
Lady Chatterley (Marina Hands) is the young and beautiful woman married to the much older Clifford (Hippolyte Girardot). Clifford was injured in WWI and is confined to a wheelchair. His condition also leaves his wife quite sexually frustrated, although it takes her a quite some time to realize this. Her sexuality awakens when she sees Parkin the Gamekeeper's (Jean-Louis Coullo'ch) bare back. This simple sighting turns her into a raving sexual maniac who ceaselessly tries to sate her newly found sexual appetite. Parkin obliges but not as happily as one might imagine. He is a grudging sexual partner. He enjoys it but he is a social misfit who feels far more comfortable away from all people. This is one strange couple.
"Lady Chatterley" picks up the pace after the first hour. If that were not so, I suspect that the entire audience would have been unconscious. The last 90 minutes has enough oomph to hold our attention, in no small part because it is very erotic at times. Unfortunately, that isn't enough to make this a film worth viewing. Lady Chatterley is simple. Parkin is simple. The movie is simple. Worst of all, the ending is incredibly unsatisfying. All of the characters seem like programmed robots who are incapable of knowing what they want or why they feel the way they do. If Lawrence wrote it that way it's hard to understand how it has lasted so long and spawned so many versions. If he didn't write it that way Mr. Ferran did a lousy job. In either case, stay away. If you want erotic, rent an adult film or at least a more interesting lust story.
