THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406170083
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
DATELINE: 940618 LENGTH: Medium
Claude Miller's French film ``The Accompanist,'' based on the novel by Nina Berberova, explores with psychological detail the role of the also-ran. It is a drama that is constantly, intriguingly, on the brink - always promising the most gauche melodrama but just as constantly staying within the disciplines of its sophistication.
{REST} This is one of those movies in which you can see the characters thinking, but you can't be completely sure what's on their minds. The guesswork can be as fascinating as it is ponderous.
Sophie Vasseur is a gifted young pianist who lives amid hunger and poverty in Nazi-occupied Paris, until she gets a job as accompanist for Irene Brice, a beautiful, talented and ultra-ambitious singer. Quite suddenly, mousey Sophie is exposed to a life of glamour and privilege. She watches and evaluates. She learns Irene's secrets - which include a handsome lover, Jacques, who is a member of the French Resistance. She admires and adores Irene. And yet. . .
Immediately, we expect to have here a pale shadow of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's ``All About Eve'' . We expect Sophie to emerge as another conniving Eve Harrington, but Sophie doesn't act on her jealousy. The film uses a series of stares and unvoiced enigmas to keep us guessing, and perhaps frustrated. ``The Accompanist'' is an interesting journey, but it has no real ending.
Romane Bohringer's deep-set eyes are quite searching in the role of Sophie. She is the daughter of Richard Bohringer, the actor who plays Irene's wealthy and adoring husband, Charles. It is Charles who is the one direct and comprehensible character in the film. He has collaborated with the Germans to retain his wealth, but gets to the point that it is necessary for him and Irene to flee Paris for London. During the journey, Irene finds love, for the first time, in the person of an idealistic De Galle volunteer.
Charles knows of his famous wife's adulterous affair but chooses to ignore it - for a while. Irene is played by the quite assured, but hardly flamboyant, Elena Safonova. Her voice, for works ranging from Beethoven to Mozart, Strauss, Shubert, Berlioz, Massenet and Sablon-Seyder, is that of soprano Laurence Monteyrol. She succeeds in singing a varied repertoire for both dramatic and lyrical soprano. The suggestion is one of competency but not greatness - entirely appropriate for Irene's musical status.
The setting is the winter of 1942-'43, but the politics of the era are kept in the background. Indeed, so are the emotions.
Sophie's smoldering envy is persistently submerged. She spies on her mistress, follows her, and exchanges long, longing glances with the smoldering Jacques. Yet any betrayals are mostly in the eyes of the beholders (the audience) or, perhaps, in her heart.
``The Accompanist'' always promises more than it delivers. It will frustrate some viewers while fascinating most.
by CNB