Mademoiselle de Joncquières is a French period film from director Emmanuel Mouret, in the grand tradition of Les Liaisons Dangeureuses (1959), that film's 1988 remake, Dangerous Liaisons, and Ridicule (1996). All of these films are moral tales; there is a lesson to be learned (eventually) by the characters, and (presumably) the audience as well. And it is no coincidence that all of these films are set in the France of the late 18th century, at the height of the Age of Enlightenment, when rationality was everything. In this rarified and rather artificial world, the head almost always rules (and overrules) the heart.

In this particular moral tale we have an attractive young widow, a Marquise, by the name of Madame de la Pommeraye (Cécile de France), who lives quite contentedly in luxury and solitude in the countryside just outside of Paris, attended to by her servants. Visiting her is the Marquis d'Arcis (Édouard Baer), who has come all the way from the bright lights and the many intellectual distractions of Paris to the quiet countryside, in order to pay court. The Marquis is, by all accounts, a serial seducer of women like the Marquise, and he woos her with the infinite patience of a serpent comfortably at home in Eden. She greets, and deflects, his advances with laughter, and an intelligence that is easily a match for that of the Marquis. She is determined not to become simply the latest of the Marquis's many conquests.

His weapons are his wits, or—more precisely: his wit, and he persistently and patiently attempts to persuade the Marquise to surrender, water wearing away at stone, hoping to overcome her resistance with an endless stream of logical arguments, elegant epigrams, and bon mots. "Happiness that doesn't last is called pleasure," he observes at one point. But at no time does the Marquis consider force: he is no rapist. If he can't win the Marquise over with wit, and with logic—if he can't seduce her, in other words—then he is not an Enlightened Man. Which is why the film could also be considered a fantasy of sorts, another example of the French demonstrating their idealized self-image: French sophistication and politesse at its finest.

The twist in this particular moral tale comes with the introduction of a fallen woman, Madame de Joncquières, and her daughter, the Mademoiselle of the film's title. A series of unfortunate circumstances have reduced the pair to destitution and prostitution. I won't reveal more here, except to say that that destination—the moral of the tale—is well worth the journey through the film, as you follow this accomplished comedy of manners to its expected conclusion—and then beyond, to an ending that is perhaps not quite what one might expect.

Mademoiselle de Joncquières is playing at the Vancity Theatre until February 7th. More information on the screenings can be found here.