Passion stirs 'Princess of Montpensier'

Bertrand Tavernier's voluptuously imagined "The Princess of Montpensier" takes place in 16th-century France; its characters' ethics and mores are decidedly antique. But the passions that course through the story are wholly contemporary, or perhaps simply unchanged: The humans who populated the Renaissance France of Madame de La Fayette's novel of the same name were torn between propriety and passions, including the near-tribal hatreds that pit Catholics against Huguenots, French against French. Love, no doubt, reared its inconvenient head amid chaos. Tavernier's point is that little besides fashion and dentistry has changed.

Tavernier hasn't. The director of " 'Round Midnight," "A Sunday in the Country" and "Safe Conduct" has a deft hand at re-creating the grimy dignity/madness of battlefields and military history (see "Captain Conan"), and "The Princess of Montpensier" never falters from presenting a convincing portrait of its period, or its politics: When teenage Marie de Mézières (the magnetic Mélanie Thierry) is promised in marriage to the Prince of Montpensier (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), she must forsake her true love, Henri Guise (Gaspard Ulliel). Despite the counsel of older friend and confidant Count Chabannes (Lambert Wilson), she remains drawn to Henri, and their intrigues thread through a narrative that involves factional politics, warfare, the count's increasing affection for Marie and the fascination of the powerful Duke of Anjou (Raphaél Personnaz), who also thinks he and Marie would make a wonderful pair.

The sacrifice of a young girl's happiness for political gain is among the morals of "The Princess of Montpensier," which wears its feminist message on its brocaded sleeve. But there are more slippery issues afoot as well, including the inconstancy of the heart and the intractability of the ego. Containing all this elegance and exciting drama is a stunning-looking picture, and a cast that looks too young at first for such emotional burdens, until one remembers that, given their time, they're all middle-aged.