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(Die Marquise von O...). Rohmer's underappreciated literary adaptation remains faithful to Henrich Von Kleist's 1808 novella in its pre-Kafkaesque absurdity and an austere, measured visual atmosphere. As a film, it is painterly, erotic, and quite droll. Set in a town in Northern Italy during the Napoleonic Wars, the story involves a young widow (the marvelous Edith Clever) who is saved from a military rape by a courtly Russian officer. When she finds herself inexplicably, horrifyingly pregnant, she is rudely cast out by her parents despite her protestations of innocence. She attempts to resolve her dilemma by placing an ad in the local paper asking the father to step forward. He does, in the person of Bruno Ganz, and the courting begins.