Les Caprices d'un fleuve (1996)
Directed by Bernard Giraudeau

Film Review

Acclaimed French actor Bernard Giraudeau followed his promising directorial debut (L'Autre ) with this lavish period piece, filmed largely on location in Africa.  The sumptuous cinematography just about makes up for the film's languid pace, although the threadbare narrative and weak characterisation do make the film feel painfully long and empty.  Despite its faults, the film allows Giraudeau, a man noted for his humanism, to make some worthwhile statements about the human condition.  Characteristically, the film's rather poignant ending offers a gentle plea for multi-racial co-existence.

Film Synopsis

In 1786, Jean-François de la Plaine, a friend of King Louis XVI of France, kills a man in a duel.  By way of punishment, he is sent into exile and made governor of a small French trading post in West Africa, Port Saint-Louis.  Jean-François resents his exile at first, but he soon comes to develop an intense liking for his new home.  However, the natural splendour of the region is totally at odds with the corruption that is rife here.  Through his dutiful subordinates, Blanet and Combaud, La Plaine learns that slave trading and smuggling are endemic, but he is powerless to prevent these.  In the course of a visit to a local king, he is made a gift of a young slave girl named Amélie. 

To the consternation of his entourage, Jean-François chooses to bring up the slave girl as if she were his own daughter.  Unable to adapt to her new life, Amélie runs away.  Ignoring Blanet's well-meaning advice, Jean-François goes after her, realising how much his young protégée now means to him.  Within a few years, France is caught up in the turmoil of the Revolution, but the slave trade continues as before.  Amélie is by this time a grown woman and is pregnant with her benefactor's child.  Relieved of his duties by the Republicans forces, La Plaine must return to France, leaving behind him the young woman who is dearer to him than anyone in the world.  When he returns to the region some years later, he is shocked to discover that his beloved Amélie died whilst giving birth to his son...