The Washington Post, December 25th, 1991
During his labor on "Madame Bovary," Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend, "Everything should be done coldly, with poise." And in directing his film adaption of the novel, Claude Chabrol has followed the master's instructions to the letter. The veteran French filmmaker's treatment is precise, deliberate and a peerless example of faithful allegiance to its source. But Chabrol has taken his countryman's advice far too literally. The movie is coldly done, all right, yet as an exercise in literary transposition it's as joyless as ditch digging. He's managed to reproduce Flaubert's clinical fastidiou...
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