All the Mornings of the World (1992)

as admirer of the work of Pascal Quignrd, I see this film as a reasonable exercise to translate the lines of a real seductive book. but itself, "Tous les matins du monde" is real seductive. for the music, romanticism and acting. for the admirable job of Guillaume Depardieu. for atmosphere. and for something who escapes from the definitions. its virtue - it is a state of soul. charming, touching, bizarre, seductive, frame for a special meaning of life and love and passion and duty and art. it is not real easy to write the expected words about it and this could be the motif to see it as a beautiful film with large senses and roots for its beauty.

Monsieur de Sainte Columbe is a cinematic staple: an Official Tortured Musical Genius, straight from central casting. His two virtues are that he's a master of the viol and its music, and that he's deeply distraught about his young, beautiful wife's untimely death. Those are the ONLY virtues he possesses. He's also the biggest ass in France; mistreating his young daughters, killing their pet beetle, telling the representatives of the King to go stuff himself for daring to praise him and invite him to play at court, deliberately smashing his pupil's priceless viol, and so on. His pupil's crime? "You're playing, but it's not *music*!" Sainte Columbe cries. And we're supposed to sympathize with him?! Making the l o n g viol-playing scenes more difficult to watch than they might be, Jean-Pierre Marielle, who portrays Sainte Columbe, is unfortunately utterly unconvincing as a viol player. His finger positions and movements on the fretboard in no way match the notes being played, nor does his bowing even roughly match the rhythm. Instead, he just gives us his patented Tortured Genius Face. And Guillaume Depardieu, as his young pupil is likewise unconvincing; acting more like a self-conscious teen heartthrob (tossing his long hair and flaring his nostrils) than acting with anything like subtlety. He also delivers one of the most groan-producing voice-over lines in cinematic history: "My thick prick hung between my legs". Yeah. Really. He did. I think at that point, the camera threw up in its mouth."Tout les Matins du Monde" is little more than a rehash of "Amadeus" (made 6 years earlier), right down to the contrite voice-over by the hack who stole the glory of the *real* musical genius, the uneasy relationship between court musician and king, the contrived romance and so on. Although "Amadeus" had its faults, its pacing and sparkling wit helped hide them. "Tout les Matins..." has no such savior. It plods along with one forced and implausible emotional scene after another. It does have some handsome locations and lovely baroque music, but in the end, it's simply not enough to save it from being irritating, predictable and ultimately, unengaging.

The real value of this movie is that it defines the art of music. Specifically, young Marin Marais comes to St. Colombe because he wants the great, renown virtuoso to teach him to be the greatest violist/virtuoso in the world. St. Colombe is disgusted at this because he has learned that a musician's greatest achievement is not to impress an audience with his flashy virtuosity, but to play so beautifully that his playing will "wake the dead". So it is with St. Colombe, when his own dead wife appears to him through the medium of his own playing. This to St. Colombe is the only reason for making music and is very much a reality. He even destroys young Marin Marais viol in a fit of anger that this point is not understood by the younger man. Later, we see that, in maturity, after having lost his own true love (St. Colombe's daughter) Marin Marais has become a truly great musician. The movie is superbly clear on this point.

First things first, this is a film very much about music, so if you do not like "classical" music, then find something else. It is something like a short philosophy of music according to M. de St. Colombe and Marin Marais, two very different composers---how close the movie is to the "real" St. Colombe and Marias, confessedly, I do not know, but this is not a documentary, so it really does not matter. There is also a very beautiful exploration of love and its various manifestations in friendship, parenthood, and sexual relations. The movie is heavy, burdened by sadness and melancholy; but it is a beautiful film and worth viewing so long as you are prepared for its weight. Its tones are elegiac, autumnal, meditative, and inward, as is the haunting music given us by Jordi Savall and co. The acting, sets, and cinematography are all excellent (hence the 10 rating). If you want something light then this is not the film for you; if you are, however, in a mood for a film that mourns with dignity, then you have found the right one.