This multiple-Oscar-winning film by Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby) is an exquisite, richly layered adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. A strong-willed peasant girl (Paris, Texas’s Nastassja Kinski, in a gorgeous breakthrough) is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line. This fateful visit commences an epic narrative of sex, class, betrayal, and revenge, which Polanski unfolds with deliberation and finesse. With its earthy visual textures, achieved by two world-class cinematographers: Geoffrey Unsworth (Cabaret) and Ghislain Cloquet (Au hasard Balthazar) – Tess is a work of great pastoral beauty as well as vivid storytelling.
The movie is based on a novel by Thomas Hardy, but Polanski never permits his film to become a Classics Illustrated; this isn’t a devout rendering of a literary masterpiece, but a film that lives and breathes and has a quick sympathy for its heroine. Nastassja Kinski is just right for the title role. The movie is set in England, but was actually photographed in France. It is a beautifully visualized period piece that surrounds Tess with the attitudes of her time — attitudes that explain how restricted her behavior must be, and how society views her genuine human emotions as inappropriate. This is a wonderful film. – Roger Ebert
Starring Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth and Leigh Lawson.