A LITTLE CHAOS

As director, Alan Rickman steers clear of lyrical grandiosity. Instead of courtly passion, he favours restraint and emotional subtlety, a fitting approach to an age caught between rigid convention and the desire for something more genuine.

France, in the second half of the 17th century. Garden designers are competing to create the perfect grounds for Louis XIV’s Versailles. To the outrage of his male rivals, royal gardener André Le Nôtre (Matthias Schoenaerts) hires a young widow with a passion for horticulture. Sabine De Barra (Kate Winslet) is carrying deep emotional scars and finds temporary solace in nature. When the royal court arrives, Sabine, unfamiliar with its etiquette and intrigues, is forced to navigate an entirely new world. She faces male dominance, political manoeuvring and her own unresolved trauma, all complicated by her growing feelings for Le Nôtre.

Critics were divided over the film’s pacing and emotional restraint, but its portrait of the period deserves attention. Beneath the elaborate frills, powder and towering wigs lies a sharp social contrast between two worlds: the elegant schemers of the court and the ordinary people living in modest, mist-shrouded homes, whose labour sustains the whims of those in power at the expense of their own private lives. Peter Gregson’s intense score runs through it all, giving voice to the clash between emotion and self-interest that the film’s accomplished cast keep carefully beneath the surface.

The film’s thread of female independence in an age that offered women little freedom owes much to Alison Deegan, who wrote her own version of Madame de Barra’s story many years before the film was made. Conceived during maternity leave and fears of a career crisis in a toxic environment, the story attracted interest only seventeen years later. It eventually became a screenplay written by Deegan, Rickman and Jeremy Brock.

A LITTLE CHAOS is one of only two films directed by Alan Rickman during his nearly five-decade screen career, the other being THE WINTER GUEST (1997). In 2014, the much-loved British actor brought his period comedy-drama to Polish audiences at the Camerimage festival, where he personally received the Krzysztof Kieślowski Award.

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Text: Paula Apanowicz