Madame de...

Max Ophuls - 1953
So we have Ophuls camera, mvoing around as it does, following following. The most memorable is when it combines with montage as De Sica and Madame dance across the weeks as they fall in love. Another very memorable shot is when over the top of those two we see the society ('Le Monde'?) reflected, which makes me think of 'Sunrise'. Oddly, I completely imagined a shot of de Sica waving goodbye to her at the station, though anyway, the trains are lovely.
Ophuls gives us enough of the pains, of their illtreatment of the staff and that lovely sequence by the doors, to avoid accusations of dilletantism. Boyer is mean, pretty gratuitously so at times, but we understand him. Equally, Madame is rather flighty and not entirely attractive; perhaps she isn't as profound as one could wish, but well, it would be a different film then.
What I especially like about this is that the fatalism isn't so clear; the return, la ronde, is rather slightly absurd, Boyer at one point suggesting that turning memories into objects is all a bit foolish. It is incredibly romantic, expertly judged at each moment (when de Sica and Madame part, when she leaves for Italy, the direction, each on seperate parts of the frame, is magnificent), and incisive with the levels of lies that permeate these lives, for all the keening.