Stars: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson, Arielle Dombasle, Carolyn Pickles

Director: Roman Polanski

Summary: A drama based in 19th Century England. A peasant sends his daughter, Tess, to live with a rich cousin, Alec D'Urberville. There, she is seduced and becomes pregnant. Based on the novel 'Tess Of The D'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy. Winner of three Academy Awards: Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

Based on Thomas Hardy's tragic 1891 novel TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES, TESS follows the hard life of a beautiful young Wessex peasant girl, who seeks her fortune with the wealthy D'Urbervilles, whom her family believes to be distant relatives. Tess's tragic fate is sealed the moment the manipulative son of the house, Alec, seduces and impregnates her. She returns home, bears the child--who dies shortly after--and her ashamed family banishes her from their home. Tess finds work and shelter on a dairy farm, where she falls in love with Angel Clare, the pastor's son. The two are soon engaged to be married. However, the evening before the wedding, Tess tries in vain to reveal her sordid past to her beloved Angel, so they wed nevertheless. On hearing the truth he flees to Brazil, leaving Tess alone once more to find work in the fields, only to be dealt further blows to her fragile life. Ultimately, when Angel unexpectedly returns she seeks to kill Master Alec--vengeance for sparking this series of tragic events--and solemnly she faces the gallows.
With stunning evocative photography and fine acting, with a particularly sensitive and fragile performance from Kinski, this languid tragedy won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design, and also a BAFTA for photography.

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Roman Polanski adapted Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervillesand came up with this moody, haunting film starring Nastassia Kinski as the farm girl who is misused by the aristocrat for whom she works and who is then caught in a marriage where her initial happiness soon turns to grief. Fans of the novel may feel unpersuaded by Polanski's effort to marry Hardy's Dorset vision with his own fascination with psychosexual impulses toward survival, but the film is an often stunning thing to see, and Kinski's sensitive, intelligent performance lingers in the memory. --Tom Keogh

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Tess From Novel To Screen Featurette, Filming Tess Featurette, Tess The Experience Featurette
Subtitles:	English, Hindi
Year:	1979
Release Date:	September 27, 2004
Runtime:	164 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 20486
Keywords:	General, Romantic, Tess, Drama, Period
Genre:	Drama