Tolerance

Tolerance is a 1989 film about an innocent young wife who inherits a hermit in a relative's will. Huh?

Luckily, I knew a little about 18th-century hermits from watching Regency House Party, one of those PBS reality shows that gather a modern group and force them to meet the challenges of living in a historical time period. For a few decades of the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was the fashion to have a picturesque hermitage in your garden or tucked in a corner of your estate. Rather like a faux gothic ruin, only inhabited by a real person.


Potential hermits signed up for a seven year stint. The hermit was to wear a monk-like robe, and the rules prohibited him from leaving the estate or cutting his hair, beard or nails. Bathing was also frowned on. As best as I can tell, this charming custom combined the Romantic movement's fascination with an arcadian ideal and the Christian tradition of a contemplative life. The hermit was paid, however, if he fulfilled his contract.

So, back to the film. Rupert Everett plays the hermit who is at first sickened by his new employer's libertine husband, Marmant. Ugo Tognazzi plays Marmant with great abandon. Food, sex, beautiful clothing--Marmant revels in every earthly delight while his sweet wife repels his caresses and admires the willpower of the stalwart, starving hermit. Things begin to get weird when the hermit decides that he hates the libertine life so much that it would really be more galling for him to live like Marmant than to continue his existence in the garden hut. He has Marmant set up him in style, hating every minute of his new, luxurious life. Or does he?

If this piques your interest, I'll let you watch Tolerance (which happens to be the wife' name) and answer that question for yourself. To me the film goes a bit overboard, but it is well acted, combining seasoned French, English and Italian players to explore a little known corner of history. Given my own fascination with the nearly forgotten castrato singers of the same period, I do have to admire that.

BTW, the painting below is by Peter Paul Rubens. It predates the hermit fad by a century, but since its title is The Hermit and the Sleeping Angelica, I can't help wondering if it didn't inspire the film in some small way.