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French director Patrice Leconte is a spirited one-off. Aside from selecting storylines which are distinctive, twisting and often eccentric, he also displays a refreshing ability to be light, even light-hearted, in the midst of serious or significant moments. Those of you who saw "Monsieur Hire", "The Hairdresser's Husband" or "Ridicule" (which scooped up all kinds of nominations and awards) will know this to be true. By the way, in case you're under the impression that Leconte is super-prolific, "The Girl on the Bridge" - which has only been with us for two months - was actually made in 1998. The two-year wait says a lot more about the riskiness of distributing non-English language films in the UK than about Leconte's creative timetable.
And so to "La Veuve de Saint-Pierre", a typically different, good-looking film set in 1850 on a small, forgotten French island near Canada, where Neel Auguste (director Emir Kusturica in his first acting role) is found guilty of murder but must wait for both guillotine and executioner to arrive. In the meantime, he enjoys the protection of the Captain and his wife (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) who - modern thinkers to the last - ask him to tend their greenhouse and, encouraged by their liberal leanings ('a man can be bad one day, good the next'), he soon becomes loved by all on the island with the exception of the rigid, authoritarian establishment which wants to see his head roll. Meanwhile the captain is caught up in his own sticky web.
Yet, despite its looks, striking imagery and a classy cast, the film suffers from characterising the three individuals as decent and not much else, and this is all the more noticeable because the entire drama hangs off one extended storyline which needs enriching by means of an added layer or subplot. But at least, as before, Leconte creates a seductive other world, a screen rarity indeed.
