Life. Life is an example of a successful, academic-avoiding adaptation of nineteenth-century literature. Astryuk was able to give the film an almost epic breath, although before us is the story of the personal life of a gullible woman, than modern melodramas abound. Carefully worked out rhythm, synchronized with musical accompaniment, flawlessly verified duration of scenes informs in common history the intonation of confidential conversation in private.
Astryuk also avoids academicism through frequent filming with movement that animates general plans, vivid landscapes that expand the intra-frame space and relieve the viewer of the claustrophobic to which his overloaded costume films have accustomed. The breath of life, the flow of time, duration captures and fascinates us through camera and installation techniques that organically form a single whole.
M. Shell, unfortunately, works in her characteristic victim role, familiar to the public on “White Nights” and “Gervaise”, which impoverishes not only the central image, but also the history as a whole. Other performers are also very limited in the choice of means of artistic expression, working on melodrama patterns. Nevertheless, due to the skillful rhythmic organization of the material, the shortcomings manifested in particulars are almost invisible, the advantages of the whole overshadow them.
Astryuk managed to create an anthem in glory of life trials, the victory of compassion over callousness, reducing the book of Maupassant, the director gave him more optimistic, life-affirming charge. Having made a voiceover comment the stylistic dominant of the tape, the director tried to convey a romantic breath on the screen, bringing literature and cinema together as much as possible by expressive means, and, in general, he succeeded. The inconclusiveness of acting is, of course, a miscalculation, but not so fatal as to spoil the impression of this quality film.