Mar­guerite et Julien – first look review

Inter­est in the sim­ply told incest sto­ry that unfolds through­out the course of this peri­od dra­ma depends on ones lev­els of salac­ity. Do you want to see an aris­to­crat­i­cal­ly hand­some broth­er and sis­ter hav­ing sex? This writer con­duct­ed a brief spell of self-exam­i­na­tion and decid­ed ​‘yes’.

The mechan­ics of how the taboo desire unfolds is based on the 16^th cen­tu­ry true sto­ry of Mar­guerite and Julien de Rav­elet, a pair whose affec­tion for each oth­er is as rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed as their cheek­bones are high in this drama­ti­sa­tion (Anaïs Demousti­er and Jérémie Elka­ïm are well-matched). They are pre­sent­ed to us as dot­ing kids over­seen by both par­ents and a priest. The lat­ter sniffs out some­thing atyp­i­cal in the way Julien looks at his sis­ter – ​“her melan­choly grace was charm­ing” – and so Julien is sent away with his broth­er to be edu­cat­ed in esteemed Euro­pean centres.

Scene-set­ting is slow to make way for the sup­ple flesh and shared blood of the core intrigue. A fresh hook comes from the lev­el of self-con­scious­ness direc­tor Valérie Donzel­li brings to the sto­ry­telling. In a dor­mi­to­ry full of school­girls in night­dress­es, an old­er girl is nar­rat­ing the tale of Mar­guerite et Julien. The gripped expres­sions on young rosy faces are tes­ta­ment to direc­to­r­i­al aware­ness that from a young age we grav­i­tate towards sto­ries of oth­er­ness. We are being dared to give into that sim­ple taste for a rip-roar­ing yarn full of romance, per­il and exot­ic distance.

For much of the film, Mar­guerite and Julien are busy not doing the deed. Accep­tance of the mag­ni­tude of their desires takes awhile to ful­ly blos­som. Céline Bozon’s pho­tog­ra­phy cap­tures the type of mag­net­ism that plays as the most nat­ur­al rela­tion­ship in this film, which in turn chal­lenges the moral pan­ic sur­round­ing the pair. Mar­guerite and Julien make a vague go of play­ing by society’s rules but the more soci­ety pun­ish­es them for their thought-crimes, the more inte­gral the solace of their bond becomes.

The script, based on a book by Truffaut’s reg­u­lar writer, Jean Gru­ault is plump with sug­ges­tive­ness, actors deliv­er­ing pre­cise words that quiver as they encir­cle the loaded facts of the mat­ter. Anaïs Demousti­er and Jérémie Elka­ïm are per­fect­ly cast. Their phys­i­cal dain­ti­ness flies in the face of the sup­posed squalor of their actions and their well-matched beau­ty tempts the cam­era as they tempt each other.

For­mal­ly unam­bi­tious as Mar­guerite et Julien may be, the romance is so heart­felt and the come­up­pance so stir­ring that it prompts a first-time ever ques­tion for this writer: ​‘Is incest real­ly that bad?’ Anyone?