A film that fits most of the criteria is Olivier Assayas' Les Destinees 

sentimentales.  It's set in France from 1900 to 1929, is not a war film and 

is mainly about the cultural/political changes of the time though in 

specific rather than abstract terms.  Actually in a way it is vaguely 

similar to Remains of the Day but perhaps a bit more like the novel than 

the resulting film.  Plus it's easily available on DVD.



I also can't help mentioning Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of 

Extraordinary Gentlemen, the comic not the terrible movie.  Though it's set 

a smidgen earlier it is--among so many other things--an explict critique of 

Victorian imperial thinking though it's also a Manny-Farber-esque tribute 

to some of the resulting culture.





Lang Thompson





>A colleague is looking for a film to show that captures the hubris of 

>European culture in the first decade of the 20th century, just before 

>World War I -- the idea that everything had been invented, the world was 

>an orderly place divided up among the imperial powers, that culture had 

>reached its zenith.  Ophuls' La Ronde has been suggested, but I think 

>there might be a better one, perhaps set in France or Britain rather than 

>Vienna. She doesn't want a war film, so La Grande Illusion, All Quiet, The 

>Big Parade, Paths of Glory et al won't work.  A film like The Remains of 

>the Day, set pre-World War I, might work, but even that might be too 

>explicitly war linked.  Any suggestions?









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