New York 2014 Review: THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE, Matias Pineiro's Beguiling Riff On Shakespeare

The Princess of France is Argentine director Matías Piñeiro's third entry in his series of Shakespeare-inspired films, which he calls his "Shakespearead." The first two of these were his 43-minute short Rosalinda (2011), inspired by "As You Like It," and his 65-minute feature Viola, which reworked "Twelfth Night."

The Princess of France, which takes on "Love's Labour's Lost," is, like those other films, less a direct adaptation of Shakespeare than a work which uses the Bard's texts - translated into Spanish - as inspiration and counterpoint to the present-day romantic complications of a group of young people who are involved in the arts and incorporate classics from literature, painting, and music, into their daily lives. The Princess of France clocks in at a mere 70 minutes, but its densely layered interplay of Shakespeare's texts, allusions to classical music and painting, and its play with chronology and alternate scenarios, belie its brief length.

The film begins with a nicely executed opening scene, which starts with an extended overhead shot of a soccer game, during which a list of the film's characters appears onscreen, reflecting the theatrical inspiration for what will follow. This shot then glides smoothly into the main action, which concerns the return of Victor (Julian Larquier Tellarini), a young theater director, to Buenos Aires from Mexico after a year, following his father's death. Before his father's death, Victor had directed a troupe of actors in a production of "Love's Labour's Lost," and now upon his return, he tries to reconvene this group to act in a radio version of the play; Victor has gotten a grant to produce a series of these Shakespeare radio plays.

"Love's Labour's Lost" features a group of men who resolve to swear off women to pursue intellectual self-improvement, a plan upended by the arrival of the Princess of France and her ladies. Victor is similarly distracted by the women who are to be his actresses for the play, all of whom seem to have some sort of intimate attachment to him. There is his girlfriend Paula (Augustina Munoz), who may have not been completely faithful to Victor while he was away; Natalia (Romina Paula), Victor's ex-girlfriend, who seems to want to use the play to insinuate herself back in his life; Ana (Maria Villar), who Victor has a secret affair with shortly after his return; and two other women, Natalia's friend Lorena (Laura Paredes), and Carla (Elisa Carricajo), a newly hired actress, who also have romantic designs on Victor.

This is a rather large set of characters and criss-crossing romantic complications to keep track of in such a short film; the large cast and the voluminous, rapid-fire dialog often makes it difficult (especially for non-Spanish speakers depending on subtitles) to keep track of everything that's going on. However, Piñeiro maintains such a light, gossamer touch to the proceedings - greatly aided by cinematographer Fernando Lockett's fluid, elegant camerawork, and the spirited, effervescent work by the cast - that this is by no means an unpleasant struggle. The result is a beguiling and charming work that marks an impressive step forward for a young filmmaker who by all indications has a fascinating body of work ahead of him.