This film has a persistently artificial feel to it that at times serves it well and at times is a hindrance - it sometimes serves to highlight the hypocrisy and corruption of the milieu and give the central characters a decadent air, but at times it interferes with character development, as it interferes with our understanding of the characters. The plot itself is rather conventional but is essentially an excuse to dissect a certain milieu. The most interesting character is in my opinion very underrated: the mayor's stepdaughter, who is clearly intelligent, somewhat sombre but decidedly not bookish. She is the sole character that does not seem motivated by purely selfish, fairly conventional motives (money, political ambition, boredom, sexual desire, etc), making her motivations harder to fathom. She is the only character with any real mystery about her; it's hinted she has some kind of fascination with death, and she makes a surprising comment related to the role of women, all of which add to her ambiguity as a character.
