Antoinette Dans Les Cevennes or My Donkey, My Lover and I, inspired by Travels With A Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2022/11/92-out-of-100-for-antoinette-dans-les.html - 9 out of 10

 

Antoinette Dans Les Cevennes or My Donkey, My Lover and I, inspired by Travels With A Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2022/11/92-out-of-100-for-antoinette-dans-les.html

9 out of 10

 

 

As it should be clear, or at the very least deductible from the title of this note, the lines to come here are Not about the original work of Robert Louis Stevenson, but about the rather impressive My Donkey, My Lover and I, an impressive motion picture (which might be available on HBO Max in your area, if you are interested), nominated for Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role, the latter won by the effervescent, dazzling, superb Laure Calamy at the Cesars…

 

The Cesars might be the French Oscars, only we have the Palme d’Or and the Cannes Film Festival (Antoinette Dans Les Cevennes has been officially selected there) and the Palme is to me the most important cinematic prize of all, indicated value, a worthwhile motion picture if it was nominated, more than the Oscar would work as a valid stamp of approval, unless we have the rare occurrence when a work of art wins both, the Palme and the Academy Award for Best Movie, as it happened in the case of Parasite http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/08/parasite-written-by-jin-won-han-and.html perhaps the only time

who knows, we could have a repeat this year with Triangle of Sadness, which has won the Palme d’Or last year, has been nominated for Best Motion Picture at The Golden Globes, if I am not mistaken, and looks like having a shot for the list of ten nominees for Best Film at the Oscars, though the chances are maybe one in two hundred, with my personal favorite this year being The Banshees of Inisherin…

 

indeed, I see The Banshees of Inisherin as by far the best production of 2022 (and I would give the Oscars and all else to the whole cast, director, script, everything) and one of the best 100 ever http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-banshees-of-inisherin.html a work of art that has in common with Antoinette Dans Les Cevennes a…donkey, there is the miniature pet that the hero has on the island, called Jenny, and in The Travels in The Cevennes, we have another animal, more stubborn…

we learn from the outstanding The Reivers by Nobel Prize laureate and one of the greatest writers, William Faulkner, that donkeys are among the most intelligent creatures, the fabulous author places them ahead of cats, dogs and horses…’ a donkey is too smart, do not pet it, for he knows you do not love him and he will feel insulted’, I have placed commas, not because it is an exact quote, I hope it comes close to what Faulkner has written, but I could not pretend this is my discovery, never had a donkey…

come to think of it, the borzoi that have landed in my lap come close to the size of Jenny, there have been…five(5) around here, because the spouse felt there must be (I said no, for these are giant breed dogs, so you can consider their immensity and count about 25 small dogs to make up about the same tonnage) and now for instance, in the next hour or so, I need to take the remaining one out, so that he can pee…

 

why do I have to do this…it beats me, for I have protested vehemently, especially at the arrival of this fellow that lies in the room next to this one – to show how much of a disagreement over his presence there was and is, my spouse and daughter call him Shine aka Shinny, and I insist on and use Cheyenne, as from the American Native tribe, with the meaning that he must be one of the last (the very last, Insha’Allah) of his species around here, and then it comes close to Shine, so not to have the poor bugger confused, they look wonderful, graceful and all, they have been the pets of the czars and the Russian nobles, Tolstoy had them and mentions the breed in – what was it, Anna Karenina or is it War and Peace – his magnum opera, but they are not especially noted for their brightness or obedience…

we have two macaws that are sitting around, in this office cum their working, screaming and shitting place – ‘beautiful plumage’ to quote Michael Palin in the Norwegian Blue Sketch, wherein John Cleese brings in a Norwegian Blue (the name they give for what is in fact a blue and gold macaw) that had just been purchased and now is dead, hence he wants to register a complaint, with Palin moving the stuffed bird to claim it is ‘moving, and then just resting’, however he offers a slug, in exchange for the dead pet in what is a hilarious work http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/and-now-for-something-completely.html

 

Antoinette Lapouge aka Laure Calamy has an affair with the father of one of her pupils, for she is a school teacher, upset to hear that the man she desires is going away on holiday, and she will not see him for quite some time…unless, of course, she does something about it, which is quite outré and audacious, for she knows he is going in the wilderness of the mountains and then she takes the same itinerary.

Robert Louis Stevenson we find from a man that keeps a chalet in these remote parts, together with his wife, has been in these parts – therefore the inspiration for the motion picture, Travels With A Donkey In The Cevennes  - to try to overcomes the sadness caused by the departure of a married woman…Robert Louis Stevenson would eventually take the long trip across the Atlantic (no airplanes in his time, just the long boat trip) and then another exhausting journey across America, all the way to San Francisco.

 

That is if I remember the story well, with its happy ending, for the pursuit of that lady is successful, albeit we have to find out if Antoinette is just as blessed, what with her troubles along the route, where she is alone with her companion, Patrick, who does not want to cooperate at times, making the public wonder if we are going to have a dead protagonist on our hands, out there in the wilderness…

Nonetheless, spoiler alert, this does not happen, no bear or pack of wolves kills the intrepid, determined, amorous, resilient, brave woman, who has a Face Off with the wife, in a rather amusing episode (there are a few actually) when the spouse sees that there is something going on, and she has a quite funny and harsh soliloquy…about Realini, there is this http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/05/and-now-for-something-completely.html and another innuendo http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world