How do the French do it?

Economic questions seem to escape me. How is it possible for the French to produce a movie like Rossignol? The music is of course beautiful, and the visuals are absolutely breathtaking (double bonus points if, like me, you are into Chinese porcelain). And I am really very happy they did it. But what I want to know is -- who pays for it and how does it ever break even?

While mindlessly watching Mezzo (and plying myself with drink) last week, I happened on the 2004 Paris Opera production of Sylvia, with the incredible, amazing, wonderful Marie-Agnes Gillot (see her here in the role with which she earned her Etoile). (The woman is nine feet tall and eats three men for breakfast). The production was really excellent, and, like Rossignol, it, too, is available on DVD. Incredible.

Of course, it is enough to see Mlle Gillot in action but once to develop just the sort of obsession which might lead one to go heavily into debt in order to produce a film like Aurore, which is, I am told (my copy has not yet arrived) basically an excuse for Mlle Gillot to dance. Which is, again, really wonderful, but, again, I want to know: how did they do it? Did someone buttonhole a big-time producer and say: "90 minutes of Gillot dancing in oriental outfits, what do you say? And did the producer gasp in amazement and the audacity of the thought and exclaim: What a brainwave! A blockbuster! I'm going into it?

Of course, one man's drink is another's poison. The reviewer on the International Film Database writes:

What a boring dancing film! Don't expect fairy-tales. It is simple a serials of modern dancing. All actors are null and without life. It seems that dancing is the only active elements in the film. The princess dances for 1/3 of film; the painter danced with her; the 3 prince from remote country bring dancing group to perform in the castle. And they are performing modern dancing in the environment of middle ages! The plot is too simple even for fairy tales. The king is simple stupid. The queen is simple kind. The minister is simple weird. The young prince is simple naive. The princes from remote countries simply want to marry the princess. The princess simply want to dance! The set is also crazy. Trees and grasses are blue, and there are spotlight on dancers in the castle, just like a modern theater. Why not build some balcony?

What is amazing is that, judging from the English of this delightful comment, the reviewer must be... French.

Amazing.