TBT: Chouans! (1988) – or A Tale of Two Mullets

There’s a reason you’ve never heard of the French film Chouans! (1988), people, and it’s because it’s pretty bad. Nonetheless, I’ve been aware of it for a while due to it starring Sophie Marceau and having costumes by Yvonne Sassinot de Nesle, and the travesty that is the wig in the featured image above. I found a copy on Rarefilm.net and fired it up and … yeah.

I’m going to let Wikipedia recap the plot for us:

“In 1793, during the French Revolution, a young woman named Céline (Sophie Marceau), who was adopted by Count Savinien de Kerfadec, must choose between two men who have been raised like her brothers, Tarquin Larmor (Lambert Wilson) and Aurèle de Kerfadec (Stéphane Freiss), while they take opposite sides in the conflict. Tarquin, also adopted by the Count, is a partisan of the First French Republic and defends the new political system; Aurèle, the Count’s natural son, supports Royalism. Both sons are in love with Céline. After the French Revolutionary Army decimates the Breton people, an insurgency of peasants, clergy, and aristocrats launches a guerrilla war called the Chouannerie.”

Except, the plot is much more stupid: Céline is born to a poor woman who gives birth in the woods in the rain and who cuts the umbilical cord with her teeth; the Count is a wacky guy who is focused on inventing a flying machine; Tarquin is brooding and sees everything in black and white, and actor Lambert Wilson (Jefferson in Paris, Timeline, The Princess of Montpensier, The Hollow Crown, The Royal Exchange, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris) overacts UP THE WAZOO; Aurèle and Céline are in love, despite having grown up together since infancy, which should make them unable to see each other as possible sexual partners per the Westermarck effect; Aurèle goes off to “America” for several years and doesn’t ever write to Céline, not even once, yet she waits for him the entire time; when Aurèle comes back, he says that he’s been “married” to several indigenous women yet is pissed that Céline and Tarquin have clearly developed a connection; premarital sex doesn’t seem to be an issue for Céline, who shags both guys at various points; Céline is forever a historical manic pixie/revolutionary dream girl who is totally committed to the cause but only expresses that by teaching revolutionary precepts to the local children, and even when the counter-insurgency gets going stays all pure-of-revolutionary-heart; and there’s a whole subplot with Charlotte de Turckheim (Swann in Love, Jefferson in Paris, Madame de Pompadour) as a local countess who has the hots for Aurèle and is a counter-revolutionary. And there are SO MANY MULLETS.

According to an interview with director Philippe de Broca, costume designer Yvonne Sassinot de Nesle put a ton of work into the costumes:

“In the same way, Yvonne Sassinot de Nesle made the costumes for me. She is a costume designer, with enormous talent. She’s a great lady of the theater, but she was there all the time, and when there were crowd scenes, she was absolutely adamant that every extra went through her hands. The uniforms were fine, it’s the same costume, and again! She was going to check that each hussar had his little braid, according to the hairstyle he had, etc. … So that the extras were ready at 11 a.m.-noon, with the riders who brought their own horse and took care of it, the guys sometimes left at 4 a.m. from their house, and she, at 5 a.m., was there. Each peasant, each extra was taken one by one, so that they were all different; she pre-fabricated costumes, reversing certain details, etc., but above all, we could film in extreme close-ups without any problem.

She went to look for costumes at the Nantes museum, costumes worth a fortune in the display cases: I don’t know how she managed to get that out of the museum … She was constantly checking them, scolding careless extras, cleaning all night long. when there had been fights in the slush, when the costumes had to be clean and dry the next morning.. All this with her assistant, Anne de Laugardière, and a whole staff of girls and boys at the guard to you … Extraordinary!

And it’s terrible because I now see a film right side up, backwards, from all angles, and I tell myself that it will go by at full speed. What will remain of this? A universe or an intermission? What I know is that in Chouans, constantly, large or small cinema professions, there has been the desire for the best” (bad Google translate of Interview de Philippe de Broca à propos de « Chouans ! »).

Sadly none of this “best” turns up on screen. Let me run it down for you.

Céline starts off in this outfit for a party:

Which turns out to be a “zone”-front gown:

Which turns out to be back-lacing:

She’s got an ATROCIOUS face-eating wig, and she yanks it off early on, demonstrating that once again filmmakers don’t understand that 18th-century women didn’t WEAR full wigs:

Afterwards, she goes full 1980s poodle perm:

She gets an overly-seamed take on a fitted gown:

And then this:

Meanwhile, the counter-revolutionary countess starts with a stripey dress and only slightly less atrocious wig:

She then spends most of the film in this red riding jacket, first with pants:

Later with a skirt:

HER HAIR isn’t just permed, it was permed 6 months ago so she has 2″+ of straight hair at the roots:

Revolutionary Tarquin wears various revolutionary-appropriate things and has a lustrous mullet:

While Aurèle competes for the title of most lustrous mullet:

Many of whom have bad wigs of their own:

Any and all dresses worn by extras seem to be crappy too:

And add one for the shitty historical portraits list:

Have you seen Chouans!? If so, I’m sorry!