Paris, 19th century. Comtesse Louise sells her diamond earrings, her husband’s wedding gift, to a jeweler in order to pay off her debts. But when she feigns to her husband, General Andre, that her earrings were stolen at an opera, the jeweler contacts Andre about them, so Andre buys the earrings again and gives them to his mistress, who loses them while gambling in Constantinopol. The earrings are bought by Italian diplomat Fabrizio who meets Louise in Paris, and the two fall in love. Angry about all of this, Andre challenges and shots Fabrizio in a duel, which breaks Louise who dies from sadness.
“The Earrings of Madame de...” reveal all the features of their author: a true romantic, but also a tragic realist, the director Max Ophuls again presents a doomed love story, this time through a love triangle between Louise, General Andre and diplomat Fabrizio. Ophuls uses a subtle codification of events through several little details—for instance, General Andre mentions that Napoleon only made two mistakes in his life (“Women and Waterloo”), and this comes full circle when Andre escorts his mistress in a train department with the number 13; while his wife Louise shows Fabrizio a painting of the Battle of Waterloo, implying that Andre is unlucky when it comes to relationships, and that he will experience a “love Waterloo”. The whole structure of the film is the one of a circle, so the camera drives are often from left to right, right to left, up and down, and then back again, whereas this is even hinted at in the scene how Louise and Fabrizio first met: the wheels (circle) of their two carriages accidentally got stuck on each other while passing on the street.
The earrings of the title heroine are a clear film device: they are a symbol for love, and since they pass from owner to owner, they show how affections change between characters. The earrings were first a wedding gift to Louise from her husband Andre, who loved her, but since she never really loved him, she sells them. Andre rebuys the earrings from the jeweler and gives them to his mistress, but she also has no affection towards him and uses them for gambling. However, Fabrizio loves Louise and gives her the earrings as a gift—and all of a sudden, they are precious for her once again, since she loves him as much as he loves her. The earrings are a catalyst for the heroine's transformation from materialism into romanticism and humanity. Among the flaws of the film are its dry, formulaic, sometimes even distant approach, while the story is somewhat banal, always dangerously close to a soap opera. The grand theme is how love is rare and fragile, since Louise spent her entire marriage with her fake love, but when she finally found true love, her fake love Andre prevents her from true joy. Nonetheless, Ophuls manages to lift the film above kitsch: even after the death of two characters, the camera continues to make its drives from left to right, up and down, in an empty room, as if it honors them when they were alive, or as if it follows their "ghosts". Also, in one sequence, Louise wants to write a love letter to Fabrizio, but tears it apart and throws them out the window of a train, and hundreds of pieces of paper scatter across the forest, more and more, until they dissolve into hundreds of snow flakes, in a moment so poetic that it needs no words.
Grade:+++
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