Weeding out a Civil War snake in the Garden of Eden

IN 1864 Virginia, three years into the American Civil War, a gated girls' boarding academy takes in a Union Army deserter found wounded in the woods.

So begins Thomas Cullinan's 1966 novel The Beguiled.

The first screen adaptation in 1971 was a lurid revenge drama by the macho Dirty Harry director-star duo of Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood, centring on Eastwood as the soldier.

Sofia Coppola retells the story from the women's point-of-view, a sensibility she has spent her career distilling. And with The Beguiled, Coppola, who also wrote the screenplay, became the second female ever in the 70-year history of Cannes Film Fe…