Enchanting little film, with splendid monochromatic visuals, sets and locations, with refined art direction by Jacques Krauss. The fable has a touch of the Brontë sisters in its details, about a young woman who is in love with a woodsman since childhood. Both are servants and subjected to the romances of the rural bourgeoisie and the games of power between the church, the military, and a nobility in decay. The film plays with the viewer, especially in the last minutes, between tragedy and comedy, to lead us to a happy conclusion, but by the time the story becomes that frivolous you can easily take it, while it rapidly closes the different subplots. Jean Cocteau wrote the dialogue and played the phantom baron in his brief, funny appearances. Recommended, it deserves restoration.
Review of The Phantom Baron
