Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.
Horseman on the Roof is both a romance and a costume drama, set in France in 1862. After reading about a dozen reviews of this movie from a wide variety of sources, I am amazed at how few reviewers have paid attention to what the movie is about at its deepest level. The reviewers that praise it do so largely on the grounds of its lavish scenic backdrop (it was supposedly the most expensive film ever shot in France) and the swashbuckling action. The reviewers that pan the film do so mainly on the grounds of the action plot being difficult to follow and failing to come together in the end. Both sets of reviewers are missing the mark because they are viewing this film as primarily an action film with a romantic subplot when, in fact, in is a romance in an action context. This is a movie about the nature of love – a particular variety of love – and the entire point of the action is to add the kind of frenzied intensity to the romance that comes from delayed culmination. The film's only significant problem is that it apparently attracts a largely male audience preoccupied with action but largely insensitive to the subtleties of a profoundly nuanced love story. Horseman on the Roof is based on a novel by Jean Giono that is steeped in French Romanticism, which should have been reason enough to alert critics to what is foremost in this film.
The setting is a Europe that is in chaos after the fall of Napoleon, with several local wars of independence igniting contemporaneously. In northern Italy, freedom fighters hope to free Italy from the grip of the brutal Austrian Empire. A number of these Italian patriots have found it necessary to flee temporarily into Aix-en-Province in southern France, where they are continuing to plot and to raise money for the rebellion. Austrian assassins have also come to France to hunt down the Italian rebels. At the center of the story is Angelo Pardi (played by a very handsome Olivier Martinez), a young, idealistic Italian nobleman. Pardi is one of those larger than life characters out of French literature in the style of, say, Cyrano de Bergerac or, especially, D’Artagnan. On several occasions, we observe him writing letters home to his mother, an Italian countess, who has purchased his commission as a Colonel in the Italian Hussards. Although we never meet Pardi’s mother, his relationship to her as implied by the letters is key to understanding his character. His mother has brought him up in the ideals of chivalry, is entirely committed to the patriotic movement in Italy, and expects her son to distinguish himself by reckless gallantry in service of the cause. Pardi’s foremost motivation is clearly to meet his mother’s exalted expectations for him. He writes in one letter, “Mother, you always wanted me to be more reckless. Today, you would be proud of me.”
As the movie begins, the Italian freedom fighters hiding out in France have been betrayed by one of their own and the Austrian assassins are close on their trail. One Italian patriot is dragged away in front of his wife into a black carriage and, after a short ride, executed. Pardi is next on the list of the assassins but daringly escapes with the villains in hot pursuit. The chase proceeds through villages that, we now learn, are being ravaged by a cholera epidemic. Bodies are being piled and burned and strangers are being lynched for fear of contagion. Pardi encounters a country physician in one village where nearly all have died from the epidemic. When they together encounter one villager still alive but near death from the cholera, Pardi observes the technique the physician claims to be the only remote chance of saving the man: rubbing the body vigorously with alcohol in order to maintain circulation. The man, however, dies, as is apparently usually the case. Moments later the physician begins to exhibit the signs of cholera infection and despite Pardi’s efforts to save him in accordance with his own prescription, the physician succumbs.
In another village, Pardi is captured by a local mob after he naively washes his hands in the town fountain. Luckily for him, the local constabulary insist on his being turned over to the town authorities, who are somewhat less caught up in the hysteria and paranoia. When the authorities themselves flee, Pardi is left to his own devices. He quickly discovers, however, that the Austrian assassins have caught up with him and soon finds himself fleeing across the rooftops of the town’s tightly packed dwellings. He observes several of the Austrian assassins getting their comeuppance as they are chased and beaten to death by the mob.
Pardi, who is now in a state of severe dishevelment, finds a rooftop window through which he enters a dwelling (hence, the horseman on the roof). The dwelling’s only remaining occupant, Pauline De Theus (played by the magnificent Juliette Binoche), hears his break-in and comes into the hallway where he is trying to go unnoticed. She exhibits composed interest in him, without any sign of alarm. He is effuse in his apologies and attempts to reassure her that he is a gentleman and poses no threat to her. Being herself a countess, she immediately recognizes his good manners and offers him food, conversation, and rest. He is polite and formal to a fault in his conversation. She is perhaps ten years his senior and at one point comments on how young he is to be a Colonel. He shows his extreme sensitivity by preparing to immediately leave in response to her harmless observation, feeling that she has, in effect, suggested that he is little more than a pup! With her reassurances, he remains and soon succumbs to exhaustion. When he awakens, he finds that the countess has left with the rest of the town’s inhabitants.
Pardi joins the exodus and meets up with a fellow Italian freedom-fighter, who is in possession of coins meant for the Italian resistance but which cannot now be delivered under the quarantine conditions. All roads have been sealed off by the military. Pardi is charged with the task of delivering the funds by traveling through the back roads and countryside to circumvent the roadblocks. As his journey begins, he soon reencounters Countess De Theus. For her part, she is also desperate to proceed with her journey home to Manosque, near the Italian alps, and back to her husband. Pardi’s gallantry requires that he offer her his assistance and he reasons, in addition, that he can then cross over the alps to reenter Italy after delivering the Countess to Manosque. Thus, their odyssey begins.
They encounter one obstacle after another. Pardi makes use of his knowledge of tactics to charge through a detail of soldiers guarding a river passage, waiting for the sun to emerge from behind clouds so that the glint of the sunlight on the rifle sights will prevent the soldiers from taking accurate aim. As they travel together and camp at night, romantic tension begins to build between the two, but Pardi, the epitomy of gallantry, exhibits his attraction for the countess only through his attendance to her needs and his selfless service to her. Though she appears to desire something more direct in the way of intimacy, she too controls her feelings out of loyalty to her husband.
Although the Countess appreciates Pardi’s watchful care-taking, she obviously also prides herself on her independence and belief that she can fend for herself, several times urging him to abandon her and proceed with his own agenda. His gallantry, however, won’t permit it. As they travel, they learn that a village is nearby – one that the Countess recognizes and where an ally of her husband lives. She determines, against Pardi’s strictest urging, to proceed to the village to seek help. Pardi, initially thinking to give up on her, soon finds himself again chasing after her. He spots her being captured by the local militia, who will take her into quarantine – presumably a near death sentence, since she will be closely housed among infected persons. Pardi turns himself into the same authorities so as to rejoin the Countess, and she fully understands that her gallant escort has endangered his own life again to rescue her. He, however, has no intention of giving up, and instead undertakes a daring escape by setting the facility ablaze. The Countess, now fully impressed by Pardi’s bravery and strategic brilliance, determines to obey and follow this young Huzzard as though she were one of his soldiers. Their mutual love and attraction for one another continues to grow yet remains suppressed by his gallantry and her faithfulness.
During their travels together, the Countess reveals something of her own history and how she met her husband that is critical to understanding the fundamental meaning of this story. The Countess was of common birth – the daughter of a country doctor. Her father had discovered an injured man, near death, near their home, and had brought him to their home for treatment. The identity of the man was unknown. By the combination of the father’s skill as a physician and the hour-by-hour care-taking of Pauline (the future Countess) for the man, he had been nursed back to life. When he had recovered, he left them, still not having revealed his identity and Pauline had expected to never hear from him again. Six months later, however, he returned, having been unable to forget her loving care, and asked for her hand in marriage, also revealing that he was a Count with extensive property. She had thus earned her nobility through selfless care for a man without expectation of reward. The Count’s love for her is what is sometimes referred to as the “Florence Nightingale syndrome.” It is an intense variety of love based on a deep gratitude and pleasure from receiving selfless care-taking from another in a time of need. The astute viewer understands, at this point, that something like the same thing is now welling up in the Countess’s own heart in relation to her gallant protector.
After evading some additional hazards, Colonel Angelo Pardi and the Countess finally find themselves having arrived at the outskirts of the Countess’s own extensive property – or, more accurately – that of her husband. Night is approaching and being suddenly caught in a powerful downpour, they seek shelter in an abandoned small mansion. Pardi, ever practical, builds a fire in the fireplace and locates several bottles of wine from the wine cellar. Countess Pauline, on the other hand, is intent on another idea: she locates a fine dress in one of the bedroom closets and fixes herself up as best she is able, determined now to seduce her young companion. After consuming a bit too much wine, she offers herself to her young protector as directly as her pride as a Countess will allow. His gallantry, however, forbids his taking advantage of her out-of-control passion for him. She asks him, “Don’t you feel anything for me?”, to which he emphatically but dishonestly replies, “No!” He determines, now, to depart immediately, no longer trusting his own ability to remain chivalrous. She is crushed and turns up the stairs toward the bedrooms where she will sleep off the pain of rejection as well as her intoxication. Part way up the wide, spiral staircase, she collapses – and the telltale symptoms quickly reveal that it is cholera rather than mere intoxication that is the cause.
The gallant Pardi rushes her to the front of the fireplace as she becomes stuporous. He frantically rips at her clothing and begins to apply alcohol in the form of the nearby wine. In a near frenzy, he massages her thighs. She, barely conscious, murmers, “I’d rather die”, expressing her deep humiliation that having rejected her offer of sex, he is now selflessly but intensively caressing her -- once again being her rescuer rather than her lover. He rips the clothing from her upper body as well, vigorously applying the alcohol as he had learned to do so from the physician. Still, he takes no advantage of her helplessness or nakedness, being fully focused on saving her life. Ultimately, we see that he has become totally exhausted by hours of this effort but that she has survived and is recovering. It is now morning. Her position in the Florence Nightingale scenario has been fully reversed, she now being the beneficiary of the life-saving care-taking.
Soon, they are back on the road, completing the last few miles to the Countess’s castle, she now being transported prone in a wagon and he walking along side. They are met by the Count, riding out from the castle on horseback, an older man, and Pardi’s look at him expresses simultaneously his sense of duty and his envy.
As the film approaches its conclusion, the Countess has written letters to Pardi, seeking his whereabouts and inquiring after his condition. A year has passed and she is near despair of hearing from him, but, finally, a letter arrives. As she reads it, she is watched by the Count from a distant window and we are made privy to the Count’s thoughts by the narration. “He knew even before the Countess, that she would have to go to him and had determined to let her go.” He knew, better than most, the strength of the attachment that forms when one is selflessly nursed back to life. It is a poignant conclusion, revealing a profound understanding of the strength and purity of this special kind of love.
Olivier Martinez is brilliant as the Italian Colonel. Already a French heartthrob, he has starred also in Queen Margot and in Unfaithful. Juliette Binoche is, well frankly, one of my favorites. She has starred in numerous films, including Unbearable Lightness of Being, Blue, The English Patient, and Chocolat. I have seen her in films from the various stages of her career and she is one of those rare women who improves in appearance with age. The chemistry between the two leads is superlative – and necessarily so, considering the difficulty that most viewers have identifying with attraction between an older woman and a younger man. Film-lovers will enjoy the challenge of spotting the great Gerard Depardieu’s cameo appearance in Horseman on the Roof. The director, Jean-Paul Rappeneau is well-versed in the genre of French Romanticism, having directed the 1990 version of Cyrano de Bergerac that stars Depardieu as well as The Swashbuckler. The musical score is superlative as is the cinematography. The film is in French with English subtitles.
This is a film with both style and meaning. Some viewers will be put off by the gore of the cholera epidemic: piled bodies and seizing patients foaming at the mouth, for example. Certainly, it is not a film for children or adolescents. My view is that you can’t understand history by closing your eyes to the uglier aspects of it. The beauty of the steely blue landscapes and, especially, the message of selfless devotion are what one will most remember. The one thing that this film has working against it, in my opinion, is that too many female viewers will be turned off by the swashbuckling action and the cholera-related gore while too many male viewers will fail to recognize the profoundness of the romantic element. Those who appreciate both romance and action will find that this vivid and epic spectacle delivers on both accounts.
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