Hungarian version/Magyar változatRecently, I was a bit hesitant to rewatch Dangerous Liaisons after some 15 or 20 years, when I saw it last time. I was worried that its story, overprivileged people hurting and emotionally destroying each other, might not have aged well. When I watched scenes from the 1999 BBC series Aristocrats, which follows the lives of the famous Lennox sisters, I found myself annoyed by the assumption that the audience should be interested, or even emotionally invested, in their story simply because they were the great-granddaughters of King Charles II and belonged to the highest ranks of society. In the 2020s, that no longer feels like a strong enough reason.
But the I was surprised the most what a real cinematic gem I re-discovered.
The useful purpose of overprivileged characters
The 1988 film adaptation of the novel written on the eve of the French Revolution by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, creates an almost claustrophobic atmosphere because its characters exist entirely within their own social bubble. I’m fairly certain that when the film premiered, no one used this term to describe the unique environment in which the characters interact. The concept of “social bubbles” has only gained traction in the last decade or so, offering a new perspective on how we see and understand this particular story.
From the perspective of fictional storytelling, this exclusive, and therefore claustrophobic, environment effectively serves the purpose of depicting human interactions in a hyperrealistic way.
By the way, I think this is what While Lotus and Succession do in their ways too, but not in such a radically incapsulating manner like Dangerous Liaisons.
Sending and receiving letters in close-ups
Actually you don’t necessarily need to know that the original story the film is based on is written as an epistolary novel. But if you do, it might make the experience even more captivating.
For me, Dangerous Liaisons is all about its iconic close-ups. The fragile beauty of Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the foreground, while the manipulative Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) close to her in the background. Our focus is on her face, on her reactions to his words,
much like the indirect interaction of sending and receiving a letter.
It’s even more exciting when you start seraching for this kind of scenes deliberately. You will find scenes, when Valmont is in foreground and Marquise de Merteul (Glen Close) talking to him frkm the background. In their relationship, he is the more vulnerable one.
It’s a psychothriller, not a romance
Interestingly, this form of adsptation, hsing this kind kf vidusl storytelling defines what genre the film is in. People love to put this type of works in the romance categkry, just because an intimate relationship is in the centre, also because the character wearing fancy dresses typical for previous centuries, and not for our lifetime.
But it’s actually a psychothriller, and also a cautionary tale of vanity. All the characters, even the rather innocent knes, like Madame de Tourvel or Cecile Volange (Uma Thurman) are the victims of their own vanity.