Tess

Year of Release:  1979

Director:  Roman Polanski

Screenplay:  Gerard Brach, John Brownjohn and Roman Polanski, based on the novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Starring:  Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson

Running Time:  186 minutes

Genre: Drama

England, the 1880s:  In the rural county of Wessex, teenager Tess Durbeyfield (Kinski) lives in a small village with her poor farming family.  When her feckless father learns that his family are the last direct descendants of the ancient, and once aristocratic "d'Urbervilles" he sends Tess to approach a wealthy local family named d'Urberville, believing that they are related.  However, Tess ends up attracting the attention of ruthless libertine Alec d'Urberville (Lawson), who relentlessly attempts to seduce her.  Eventually he overpowers her, an incident that has catastrophic repercussions.

Given what was going on in Roman Polanski's life at the time he made Tess, it might seem that a stately, lavish period drama was a safe choice to help rebuild his career in mainstream cinema.  His previous film, the psychological thriller The Tenant (1975) had been a commercial and critical disaster, but far more seriously he had fled the US after his criminal conviction in 1977 and, to this day, he can't set foot in the United States without risk of arrest.  However, Polanski was first given a copy of the Thomas Hardy novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles in 1969 by his wife, Sharon Tate, who believed it would make a good film and wanted to play the lead.  She gave him the book shortly before she was murdered by the Charles Manson cult.  The film opens with a dedication to her.

The film is a beautiful piece of work.  It sticks very closely to the novel, although some scenes are cut.  Set in Thomas Hardy's fictional county of Wessex, based on his native Dorset, the film was shot entirely in France due to Polanski being unable to enter Britain without risk of being extradited back to the US.  this doesn't really matter though, it's a stunning film to look at, the kind of film where almost every image looks like a painting.  Aside however from the climax set at Stonehenge, which does look like at times like a studio set.  A key element in the book is farming and rural life, and this is conveyed in the film, during the 1940s when Polanski was fleeing the Warsaw ghetto he spent a lot of time in very rural Poland and wanted to show the ancient peasant culture he found there.  it beautifully captures the countryside and the changing seasons.  Nastassja Kinski is striking and conveys a lot with very little, and is always mesmerising.    Understandably, many people will be put off due to the subject matter, and the fact that it's Roman Polanski.  However, it is a beautiful and wonderful film, and definitely recommended for fans of the novel.

Nastassja Kinski is Tess