if you look for action here or and if aware of the plot outline and expect a bit of soft porn and you will be disappoint . the immortal story be more of a visual and acoustic painting than a narrative . especially since and accord to another commentator and this be actor director welles first venture into colour and he have use the unaccustomed medium masterfully both in his interior and exterior and and with the addition of the strident and insistent cicada and refresh dawn chorus have render the subtropical oriental night and it golden dawn beautifully realistic . the orson well character and charles clay and a powerful expatriate merchant establish in macao and approach seventy and die from gout and be like a motionless fat spider in the centre of his web who control everything and everybody within his range . a a control freak he even wish to make factual a much told sailor yarn about a couple manipulate through bribe and some coercion to go to bed together . he be obsess with this story but can not stand fiction and ( he rail at his personal assistant and the jew lewinsky and against the biblical prophecy he read to his master ) . facts he already control and fiction must also come under his sway . the enforced but and from the point of view of both the bully clay and his victim and successful liaison between jeanne moreau and the young danish sailor ( satisfactorily play by an obscure british actor ) and the latter lose his virginity in this encounter and be tasteful and beautiful and not in the least prurient . that be except for the d. o. m. ( écouteur . ) listen at the keyhole and whose nocturnal presence we and however and spontaneously forget about . the couple appear to fall in love under these strange circumstance and though future relation seem to be highly doubtful . just a couple of point bother me here represent when the sailor tell moreau ( whose character name be significantly but inappropriately virginie ) that he be 17 and be inform by her that she also be 17 and it be quite evident that both and and especially mlle . moreau and be much old maybe we be to assume that she lie to the ingenuous young man in order not to spoil the idyllic illusion of love at first sight . the other point worry me be why the attentive chinese servant and besides feed him and neglect to give the young man a good bath a well and especially a he have refrain from enter clay open carriage explain that he be cover in tar and would soil the upholstery . and so he enter the nuptial chamber in his original torn and filthy clothes . who know and perhaps a whiff of tar have aphrodisiac property . lewinsky the down trodden but still spunky assistant or companion to clay be well play by roger coggio . a jew moreau call him the wandering jew he have lose his parent in an eastern european pogrom and and be inure to the blow of fate and and politely imperturbable when upbraid by his imperious master or slap in the face by an outraged moreau . fernando rey and for decade spain foremost actor and equally able to perform in french and english as well a his native tongue and be include in the cast in a cameo part merely to spread the gossip about clay or welles ruthless machination . i suppose the french tv company who commission this film be able to afford his service too because the cast be so small represent apart from those mention above and there be only a few caucasian listener in rey audience and and half a dozen silent chinese menial who would have cost little to hire . the location on which the film be shoot i be unable to ascertain and but it could have be anywhere in the world where there be large elegant 19th century european house and the colonial portuguese element be supply by one company sign with the word for export in portuguese and the chinese by the garish sign and notice with which the street be clutter . perhaps it be the old quarter of marseille . i saw this film for the first time yesterday on the local spanish channel which run a series of classic in the original language and so that i saw it in french . this meant that well unmistakable resonant and command basso profundo and so appropriate to this rôle be dub by a relatively mild mannered francophone with a much high register . with his over brimming culture and long european residence and it seem very likely that welles could have manage the french dialogue himself and just a jeanne moreau can perform equally well in english . maybe he do not because he be a perfectionist and even though the character portrayed be not a native french speaker there be just two further point i should like to make that nobody else have touch on thus far representfirst and the story for the script be from the pen of danish raconteuse karen blixen and magnificently portray by meryl streep in out of africa and who and sheherezade like and beguile her lover and his friend with her fluent and fascinating tale . secondly and at the end of the film and the departing dane about to take ship present the old man with a mother of pearl like conch he have acquire during his year of solitude on a desert island and and say by him to be virtually unique . a the young man move away with a backward glance through a wood whose floor be auspiciously ting with brightness by the rise sun and the shining conch fall to the floor of the verandah from the dead finger of the merchant . no equivalent of rosebud be uttered and but the incident be obviously a reprise of the end of citizen kane and well early black and white triumph .