Swann in Love

The filming of Proust's massif central had been looming on the horizon for eighteen years, surely the longest gestation period of any movie ever. Proustians had been hiding under the bed ever since this latest stab was announced, directed by a German, part-scripted by an Englishman (Peter Brook), starring an Englishman as Swann (Irons), and with an Italian (Muti) as Odette. In spite of the multi-national packaging, however, it is pulled off with a good grace and considerable emphasis on the humour and sexiness of the original - two factors that people seem to forget. Schlndorff shows an uncharacteristic visual organisation; and the clever notion of collapsing the thing into just one day in the life of Swann is vindicated by an elegiac coda which casts a suitable Proustian net over the whole enterprise. Piquant; if only for the fact that the subject matter - consuming jealousy - is rare in modern cinema. CPea.