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Passion of Beatrice [VHS]

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Beatrice awaits her father and brothers return from war. The family fortune has dwindled but Beatrice looks after the castle and its surrounding farmlands the best she can. These early scenes have a beauty and magic to them and Julie Delpy's etheral beauty seems perfectly at home in this setting. Her world is charmed with wonder and she looks destined to live the romantic life of princess. It seems all that is missing is a father to restore the castle to its former glory. The longer he is gone the more Beatrice idealises this man she never knew. When word reaches her that he is on his way back she is ecstatic. Meanwhile we see what kind of man he is. From the first glimpse Tavernier gives us of him we know he is not what Beatrice imagines him to be. As they welcome the father and his band of soldiers into the castle and feed him someone asks to hear of his exploits...a silence fills the room. Reluctantly he begins to tell a tale quite different than the one the listeners expected to hear. We soon realize a more disillusioned man never walked the earth than this man. He paces the halls of the castle like an animal hungry for prey. Nothing is sacred to him, nothing safe from him. Religion nor family hold any sway over him, he takes what he wants & the biggest prize in the castle is Beatrice. This homecoming begins to feel like a state of seige. It is not long before the prize is forcibly claimed.

Beatrice pleads with the priest for protection but he will do nothing that might offend the Lord of the castle. In fact its Beatrice who is blamed for her fathers actions. Her only ally proves to be a female witch and witchcraft in this film seems to be the one activity available for women to feel powerful and it proves to be quite seductive to helpless Beatrice. Tavernier seems to be saying that once a man loses faith his capacity for destruction is limitless. The father defies every natural law and in so doing seems to beg for someone to destroy him once and for all. And finally someone does.

In other films Tavernier has dealt with family dysfunction in a profound way (The Clockmaker) but this goes well beyond mere dysfunction. There is something compelling about this recreation of the middle ages as it seems to capture the essence and contradictions of the time--and even offer a very modern way of explaining why such forces co-existed.

Bertrand Tavernier's indictment of knighthood and chivalry gone sour-- is a must-see to anyone who thinks the 12th century was a time of saintly knights on a quest to make the world safe for Christianity.
To Tavernier, it was an un-romanticized time of incest, murder and mad obsession.
Not for the faint of heart, "The Passion of Beatrice" is none-the-less, a film of brazen originality not easily dismissed.
Where is the Criterion version of this masterpiece?

This movie disturbed me but was still unbelievably compelling to watch as the three main characters, the father, the son, and the daughter wage an internal war upon each other.

The father and son return after an humiliating experience at war only to find that the battle continues with each other at home. The son is constantly berated by the father for his shortcomings. The father forces the daughter to express the same emotions of compassion and love she shows to her brother to him. What ends up happening is a fierce battle of strength versus intelligence.

A disturbing, compelling, and haunting movie. Be warned, it's not for all tastes.

I've watched this film many times, and it never fails to move me. It has the aura of ritual -- as when the father points to his heart and says "Here" before his daughter stabs him, a death he has surely earned. Is this what he has desired all along? Did she have to dress up in her disgraced brother's clothes before being capable of murder? Etc. This film is so un-PC, the viewer might be best off seeing it as an exploitation movie gone arty and strange. Best witch-burning sequence ever. Best dirt-eating. Best ancient castle with hand-held chase scenes. Magnificent acting. Won't bore you for a second, that's for sure. The real thing without any cinematic cliches. Compare to "The Devils" or "The Return of Martin Guerre."

La Passion Béatrice [AKA "The Passion of Beatrice"] [AKA "Beatrice"]
France / Italy 1987
Dir. : Bertrand Tavernier

a review by Jonathan Fain

Julie Delpy stars in this horrific film about a sadistic relationship between a father and a daughter in France of the 14th Century. The film attempts to shatter the romantic chivalry image of the heroic medieval knight, by showing a rather dreary image of the period, defined by psychological dysfunction, and violence.

The movie opens with a child, François, growing up in the shadow of the Hundred Years' War, told by his father to keep his mother safe and to wait for his return. François takes action when he discovers his mother with a lover in bed. François murders him in the name of defending his father's honour. Like father like son, François grows up, and leaves his family, also to go to the same war. This setting is somewhat of an explanation for the events to come, as on his way home, we already notice that something is wrong with François. The war has not done well with him, he has changed.

The daughter, Béatrice de Cortemart (Delpy), awaits her beloved father, to return from captivity of the English. She is pure of heart and she was left to take care of the estate while her father was gone. In her father's absence, Béatrice needs to deal with financial difficulties, which strengthens Béatrice's hope that her father will return to save her. But, upon his return, she notices that he lost the will to enjoy life, and he tortures and humiliates everything around him, even his own daughter. From this points the film depicts various ways how François torments his family. Starting with humiliating his own son, and ending with the rape of his own daughter, Béatrice.

Setting the film in the Middle Ages supposed to soften the blow, as the viewer may tell himself, that these kind of violent acts were held in difficult times. And indeed, many films on the topic of Incest, such as Tim Roth's "The War Zone (1999)" which are contemporary were more shocking because of that.

Delpy appears in this film in several daring nude scenes. Indeed she appears to be angelic and beautiful.

I was annoyed when I saw some animal torture scenes. I believe, and this is not confirmed, that some birds were killed for the making of this film, which really upsets me. The quality of a film drops when real violence is used towards animals. I would hope that this movie will be re-released without those cruelty scenes. Those scenes do not contribute much to the film storyline.

Overall, the movie is too long. The script is problematic. We don't get to see François and Béatrice before the war, we don't really get the answer why is he changed to such extreme. I would have pass on this film, however, I have to mention a few scenes that made this film worth watching:

* Scenes of a young child being able to murder in cold blood is truely shocking. I saw it first time on "City of God (2002)". Here, François, murders his mother's lover, while his father away at war. Excellent scene and very graphic.
* The scenes from Béatrice being raped by her father till she finds out she is pregnant from him are truely shocking and interesting. The scene after the rape, where Delpy burns her cloths and cleans herself. She asks her brother to kick her in the stomach with hopes to have a miscarriage.

* The brother humiliation scenes where the father dumps his son's head into the food - humiliating him then ranting about the war. Later, dressing his son with women's cloths.

The film won the César (French Oscar) for Best Costume Design, I agree, the costumes here really make the film look authentic for the time period. The movie location is Château de Puivert, a real 12th century castle and a historical monument, located in Aude, South-Central France. Beautiful castle and mountain view, really helps you set into the period of this film. The film also nominated for 3 more César awards, but they were all snatched to the widely successful French film "Au revoir, les enfants" ("Goodbye, Children", 1998).

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Released as "Beatrice" in New York City, March 1987. Only to be screened in France on November 2007.
Watched it on YES3 on 3 May 2007, 17:45, at work.

This film is well acted and well directed; however, emotionally it is VERY difficult to watch. The father in the film is a full-blown psychopath. It's hard to say which is more horrifying: his emotional abuse of his son or the sexual abuse of his daughter. I'm not exactly sure what the point of this film was, unless it was to de-romanticize the Middle Ages; in this, it certainly succeeds. I do have to give director Tavernier credit for an honest treatment of child abuse in all its revolting reality. Watch it only if you have a strong stomach.