George Sand (1804 - 1876) was a free-spirited woman and prolific writer with 70 novels, 29 plays, and 44,000 letters to her credit. She scandalized nineteenth century Paris by defying convention and by blazing new trails for women: "I ask the support of no one, neither to kill someone for me, gather a bouquet, correct a proof, nor to go with me to the theatre. I go there on my own, as a man, by choice, and when I want flowers, I go on foot, by myself to the Alps."
Judy Davis portrayed Sand in the 1990 film Impromptu which explored her affair with Frederic Chopin. Here the inimitable Juliette Binoche plays the writer who scandalized society by leaving her husband, a baron, and moving to Paris at age 27 with her two children. Her friends were stunned when she began a romantic relationship with the notoriously self-indulgent 23-year-old poet and writer Alfred de Musset (Benolt Magimel). Writer and director Diane Kurys (Peppermint Soda, Entre Nous) charts the passion, turmoil, and torment of their affair in the 1830s. It reveals all the complexity, intensity, and mystery of the kind of love that utterly transforms lives.
Arriving late for a public reading by George Sand in Paris, Alfred de Musset is immediately attracted to her. They see each other as rebel soulmates united by their creativity and imagination. Sand is intrigued by the attention he gives her and oblivious to his violent streak and his self-destructiveness. They embark on a trip to Italy that is meant to serve as a spur to their writing careers as well as a backdrop for their romance. But she falls ill during the journey and on arrival in Venice must summon a doctor (Stefano Dionisi). Musset, who claims to be no good as a nurse, escapes into the city's brothels. Sand recovers but ends up spending her evenings alone with her writing. After Musset badgers the doctor for some opium, this creative genius who believes that he must behave badly in order to write well almost dies of an overdose of the drug. Sand and the doctor nurse him back to health but Musset becomes insanely jealous, convinced she is having an affair with the doctor. He almost strangles her in a fit of rage. She decides to stay in Italy while he returns to Paris. But eventually Sand's feelings draw her back into Musset's orbit one more time.
Children of the Century vividly conveys both the pitfalls and the pleasures of over-the-top love.
