France/Italy/Germany/2022—directed by Pietro Marcello  | 103 minutes

Pietro Marcello, one of contemporary cinema’s most versatile directorial talents, follows his 2019 breakthrough Martin Eden (shown virtually by the DFT during the 2020 lockdown) with this entertaining period fable based on a beloved 1923 novel by Russian author Alexander Grin. Beginning as the tale of a sensitive brute (Räphael Terry) who returns from World War I to his rural French village, only to discover that his wife has died and left him to care for their baby daughter, Juliette. The movie soon blossoms into a pastoral portrait of Juliette as a smart young woman (newcomer Juliette Jouan) falling for a modern man (Louis Garrel) who literally drops from the sky, while at the same time reckoning with a local witch’s prophecy about her future.

In his first French film, Marcello proves he is as comfortable spinning yarns in the realm of folklore as he is in creative nonfiction, deftly interweaving realism, romance, and even musical flights of fancy into the unexpected delight that is Scarlet. Cannes and New York Film Festivals. In French with English subtitles.

“Lovely! This charming fable — which hails from the celebrated Italian doc maker whose epic narrative debut, Martin Eden, was a critical success on the festival circuit just pre-COVID — is smaller, sweeter and more sensitive than Marcello’s earlier work.” –Peter Debruge, Variety