Adapted from Balzac’s novel, Lost Illusions is a cautionary tale – a dark parable about the snakes and ladders of life, a set of choices which all of us, especially young artists, confront.
Balzac writes against the fashionable romanticism of his age, insisting that a focus on individualism and sentimentality fails to present a meaningful perspective on society.
This aptation retains all the savage brutality of the original to draw a portrait of a judgmental, brutal, ambitious and competitive community which can both cripple and elevate its members.