Young, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his mentor Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis) engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
Whether the main characters in this film are homosexual, bisexual or something else does not matter. That is part of the beauty of the way the subject matter is approached: we are not to think of these two as anything other than two passionate, and sometimes crazy, lovers... what the courts thought of them is beside the point.
And it is a great story. I concede I know nothing of Rimbaud or Verlaine. I believe they were the subject of the German film "Michael", though I may be mistaken (and even then the names were changed). But it seems it is not important to even know them... this is what it is like to be in a passionate and destructive relationship. Is it beautiful or terrifying? Certainly it helps produce great art, but at what cost?
Whether the main characters in this film are homosexual, bisexual or something else does not matter. That is part of the beauty of the way the subject matter is approached: we are not to think of these two as anything other than two passionate, and sometimes crazy, lovers... what the courts thought of them is beside the point.
And it is a great story. I concede I know nothing of Rimbaud or Verlaine. I believe they were the subject of the German film "Michael", though I may be mistaken (and even then the names were changed). But it seems it is not important to even know them... this is what it is like to be in a passionate and destructive relationship. Is it beautiful or terrifying? Certainly it helps produce great art, but at what cost?