Swann in Love (1984)

I really admire the work of Volker Schlondorff, I think he is one of the best German director nowadays with Wenders (although in a very different style). His adaptation of Proust is quite good but several things really annoyed me.

_first, the soundtrack: why using an atonal composition of Henze when Proust, who loved Wagner, filled his novel with specific musical references? It simply does not fit the atmosphere! Any chamber music of the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries would have been better!

_second, the acting: I am french and I really think Alain Delon is way overrated, he's simply mediocre. However, I really like Jeremy Irons, and Ornella Muti is usually quite good, but their dubbing is absolutely awful and ruins totally their acting! So I understand that Irons would have had a very strong English accent if he had been asked to act in french but if Schlondorff decided to shoot the movie in Paris with 90 percent of the cast being french, why in the hell didn't he choose two other french actors for the leading roles? I have nothing against English actors, on the contrary, but then, he should have shot the movie in English rather than dubbing miserably these good artists.

_Third, the movie is sometimes a little slow. Usually, Schlondorff does a much better job with the editing. If you want to discover the terrific job of this great director, you should rather see "The Tin Drum", "The Ogre", "The Handmaid's Tale" or "Death of a Salesman" before this one.