Passione D'Amore

This serio-comic essay on the perversities of love and gender is one of director Scola's best. Giraudeau plays a soldier who must leave Antonelli, the stunning married woman with whom he's having an affair, when he's transfered to an isolated fort. The only woman near the outpost is the beastly looking, terminally ill D'Obici, who quickly falls for the new soldier. Ultimately, Giraudeau discovers that pity can be stronger than love, and D'Obici dies a happy woman, while Giraudeau seems to inherit her maladies. Trintignant is memorably dry as a meddling liberal doctor. Exquisitely photographed in pastel colors with lavish turn-of-the-century costuming, this film was...