Landes

I'm a fan of historical fiction, and of French cinema, so I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. Set when electricity was just beginning to be used in cities and in the homes of the wealthy, this film paints a remarkable portrait of rural poverty in France in the late 18th century. Our misguided heroine hopes to improve the lives of the people in her estates by bringing electricity to the poor, until she realizes "jazz and electricity don't make for modernity." The movie has atmosphere and as another reviewer has said, the setting in South West France is lovely. The central character of Liena Duprat, with all her contradictions, is very well played. The movie is not meant to be a grand historical epic but just a little slice of subaltern history and in this, it succeeds very well.