Zulawski's 'La Fidélité' is one imbalanced film. The plot is verycontrived. It tries to tackle too many things at once but does notquite succeed in spite of the almost 3 hour length. The characters lackdimension (and are hardly interesting). I was irritated by the explicitmale nudity (which was more than female nudity). The sex scenes lookedunconvincing and a little vulgar, as if they were just thrown in themovie randomly, giving it a pretentious look. The story lacks adistinct direction. Yet, somehow, something about it kept me watchingtill the end and after the closing credits have rolled, I didn't feeldisappointed (by the fact that I spent three hours watching the film)nor was I particularly satisfied. By no means, is this a great film butit is shot quite beautifully. The photography and cinematography areexcellent. Some of the images have been so wonderfully and artisticallyshot and brought on screen. I liked how beautifully the relationshipbetween Clelia and her mother (played by the fabulous Magali Noël) wasportrayed and how Clelia's obsession with photographing everythingreflects her own life. Sophie Marceau does very well, carrying thefilm, in spite of having a weakly written character. Guillaume Canet isokay and Pascal Gregory is awful. Perhaps Zulawski wanted to presentthe film like a photograph which captures a moment but tells a lotabout the surrounding time period. He doesn't succeed though. For me,it's one of those films that I wouldn't call great but I didn't mindwatching either.
