This little known film, produced for TV, is a real gem. The three hours of the film seemed to me like two hours, it was that fascinating.
Of course no one knows how the people of the 18th century really behaved, how they moved, or talked, but when I watched "La Vie de Marianne", I thought: "They look not like Hollywood actors wearing costumes doing their job, it could have really been this way in the old times". It felt authentic, I felt immersed into the past.
The casting, the performances, the music, the costumes, the camera-work, the editing: Everything is splendid. Central to the film are the dialogs, which are sometimes long, but, due to the situations and performances, never tiring.
I noticed three strange (surrealistic?) inserts, two in the first half, one in the second half of the film, that seemed to have no direct connection with the rest of the film, but added to the atmosphere and fascination of the whole.
"La Vie de Marianne" is beautiful, entertaining and thought-provoking. It adds a lot of funny touches to the ultimately quite depressing tale and should have been shown in cinema instead of TV.
