Ars amandi (1983)

In Augustan Rome, the poet Ovid recites verses from the Ars Amatoria to a gathering of disciples. One of them, Cornelius, is inspired to seduce the beautiful Claudia, wife of the tribune Macarius, who is confined to the house by her husband under the watch of her mother-in-law, Clio, and a parrot. Other characters move around them, including Sepora, Claudia’s maid; Modestina, wife of the general Laurentius; and the widow of an otherwise unidentified councilor named Nero, who keeps a swan in her garden. Once her husband has left on a military expedition, the first thing Claudia does is free the parrot from its cage. It flies into the neighbors’ houses, risking being pierced by Laurentius’s arrows. Meanwhile, taking advantage of Macarius’s temporary absence, Cornelius is welcomed into Claudia’s home, where she believes she can rely on her maid Sepora’s discretion. Claudia, however, shows jealousy toward the young man, especially after receiving a letter in which a certain Marsia declares that Cornelius is in love with her. Sepora herself, after reassuring her mistress that her lover loves her, prays to Priapus that she might become Cornelius’s lover instead. Claudia then decides to invite Cornelius to a reception at her villa celebrating the Roman soldiers’ return from Gaul. At the reception, the young man is introduced to Macarius, while the other guests give themselves over to lustful behavior, mostly because they are drunk. Laurentius in particular, after discovering his wife Modestina’s infidelity (she has just slept with the servant Rufus), kills her by strangling her. Claudia, meanwhile, runs through the house calling for Cornelius. In the end, he surprises and kisses her, while at the same time forcefully pushing her onto her bed. The two lovers continue meeting in secret until the day Macarius discovers their affair and kills Cornelius with a sword thrust, after leading him into a room in the villa. He then forces Claudia to have sex with him. Afterward, the tribune’s anger turns against Ovid, who is arrested by Roman soldiers. At this point, the widow Nero tries to prevent the poet’s arrest by throwing herself at the soldiers’ feet and swearing, on the child she is carrying, that Ovid is acting in good faith. Shortly afterward, she gives birth to two boys. Claudia, who has meanwhile joined a group of Ovid’s female students, flees with Macarius’s soldiers in pursuit. Amid a fire, she wanders through the rooms of her villa as it is consumed by flames, once again calling for Cornelius. From the flames of the past to the present: Claudia’s face becomes that of Claudine Cartier, a young archaeologist traveling from Rome to France with a parrot. She wakes from a nightmare in her Land Rover and encounters a priest, who looks like Macarius and whose car has broken down on the highway. Claudine gives the priest a ride home and sets off again. Soon afterward, the priest learns from a newspaper that Claudine was loved by Henri Corneille, a university teaching assistant who killed his professor and mentor out of jealousy.