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? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Funhouse Journal http://wlt4.home.mindspring.com/blog/journal.htm ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]