Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Lover (1992)

I've already written about Marguerite Duras's novel L'Amant (1984) – of which this is an adaptation by a French director but in English – and I noted that the Goncourt-winning book isn't her best work: in fact to be honest it's far from it. But although a film version is necessarily different, Duras, having spoken to Annaud a few times before the film was completed, found it 'bizarre' that he thought it was his film: Annaud must have found Duras's attitude bizarre too, and he'd formerly had no problems adapting Umberto Eco's novel Il nome della rosa to the screen, and Eco certainly spoke of his novel and Annaud's film: two distinct entities. Duras had previously called her novel 'shit' and said she was drunk when she wrote it: so she wrote another version of her autobiographical story which was published in 1991 as L'Amant de la Chine du Nord, although Annaud didn't bother to read it. Duras's verdict: 'Rien ne m'attache au film, c'est un fantasme d'un nommé Annaud' ('I have no relation to this film, it's a fantasy by someone called Annaud'.)

Annaud also had problems finding the two protagonists, although he first found Tony Leung Ka-fai as the fifteen-year-old girl's lover, but the girl herself was a problem. Eventually Annaud's wife spotted a model, Jane March, in a fashion magazine, and this was her first role as an actor: she was in fact just eighteen, although she in parts (particularly before the deflowering) just about passes for fifteen.

What can we say of the film? Certainly the choice of the two actors is a good decision as both play very well, and as I remember it this seems to stick closely to the book, although – for obvious commercial reasons – there does appear to be an over-emphasis on the erotic side: the French Wikipédia entry for Jane March (but not the English version as I write) correctly states that March was dubbed 'the sinner from Pinner' (she was born in nearby Edgware and apparently attended school in Pinner). This year, of course, marks the film's thirtieth anniversary.