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Reviews
Daphne (2007)
Secrets and Lies: Daphne du Maurier falls in love
This 2007 glossy film about Daphne du Maurier's liaisons with Ellen Doubleday (who may have been the love of Daphne's life) and Gertrude Lawrence (an affair of mixed blessings) highlights the contradictions in Daphne du Maurier, from her inner feelings of being a 'boy in a box' to her outer conventional marriage-and-children life.
The film focusses on a relatively brief period of DduM's life from 1946 to 1952, albeit a dramatic time when the writer went to the US to defend a libel suit, accusing her of plagiarism in her novel 'Rebecca', meets and falls for rich socialite publisher's wife Ellen Doubleday and gets caught on the rebound into an affair with Broadway and West End star, Gertrude Lawrence, actress, personality, and close friend of Noel Coward (who also features in the film). The writer's life, of course, encompasses so much more - she was born in 1907 so was in her forties at the time of the film's setting with a husband, three children, and 8 novels behind her. Several other novels, short stories such as 'The Birds', and non-fiction followed and she lived till 1989. So this film does in a way distort the author's life into a kind of concoction of lesbian desire at a time when such relationships were socially taboo, and by its focus, neglects the really important aspect of the author's life - her writing.
But, if not an accurate depiction of DduM's life, the film itself is highly entertaining, mainly due to superb performances from Geraldine Somerville as Daphne, Elizabeth McGovern ('Downton Abbey') as Ellen Doubleday, and always wonderful Janet McTeer as Gertrude Lawrence. If the film encourages younger viewers (the 20-40 age range) to read Daphne du Maurier's novels, all well and good. They are in for a treat. As a fan (though the author didn't like 'fans') I think that not only are her novels original, intelligent, well-written, and great dramas, they are an important contribution to 20th-century women's literature.
Sage femme (2017)
Precious moments
There are two Catherines in this film, the ever-beautiful Catherine Deneuve and charming Catherine Frot. They are equal in stature, performance and grace. This is a beautiful film with so many nuances and attention to tiny detail: the contrasts of fragility and strength of relationships portrayed through the marrying of opposing forces. Beatrice (Deneuve) and Claire (Frot) are perfectly balanced. The male presences of Claire's son and boyfriend are almost superfluous but without them, the gradual understanding developing between Beatrice and Claire would be too intense, too insular. Claire's profession as midwife is beautifully portrayed through real-life births which bring out her innate empathy and humanity. The metaphor of the closing maternity clinic where she works and the new, technically advanced hospital where focus is on the number of births achieved rather than the intimate personal deliveries, where the senior 'midwife' is now male - a birth technician - is reflected in Claire's life where the past, never far away from her mind, is relived through Beatrice's coming back into her life, and which comes to mean so much more to her than her present or future.
There are subsidiary themes about women's independence, appropriation of female roles by men, the diminution of women's private and intimate worlds in today's society. While these are interesting, they do not detract from the central theme of the film: women's relationships and how, despite all challenges, women will understand another woman in a way that she will never understand the opposite sex.
Another complex and riveting example of French filmmaking.
The Proprietor (1996)
Merchant Ivory go French
This is a beautiful film. Jeanne Moreau, charismatic as ever with her evocative face with its distinctive sensual pout and luminous eyes, dominates the film - as intended - as a rich and famous writer, Adrienne Mark, living in New York with nightmares about her young life during the Second World War. The memories that flood back make her want to buy her mother's apartment in Paris, which has come up for auction. Her story unfolds with neatly nuanced flashbacks seamlessly interlaced with the main movement of the film, but there are several sub-plots adding to the film's complexity and interest. A young American photographer, introduces himself to Adrienne in a New York art gallery and their acquaintance develops into a charming theme whereby he gradually wins her affection. The relationship between Adrienne and her maid/companion of long years standing is delicately portrayed with excellent rapport between Moreau and actress Nell Carter. Adrienne's ex-husband (Christopher Cazenove), still in love with her plays his role in her life with careful consideration. Another, significant, sub-plot is the romance between American film director Virginia Kelly (Sean Young) and Patrice (Marc Tissot), son of the director of the original film version of Adrienne's book, a portrayal which pays tribute to French-style movies as Patrice sings to Kelly as they paddle in the fountains at a chateau (Catherine Deneuve films came to mind).
Moreau steals every scene she is in - of course! I'm sure Ismail Merchant and James Ivory fully intended her to. You can't take her eyes off her. Her costumes are beautiful, her hair stylish, her gestures so individual. But Merchant Ivory are always careful not to over-dominate their stories with a single track. The weaving of all the other players' characters and their own stories into Adrienne's is considered and never overdone.
I loved this film and it was simply glorious to watch one of the 20th century's greatest film actresses in a lovely role which suited her down to the ground. Encore champagne!
London Boulevard (2010)
Crime thriller that started well but petered out into a morass of violence
I agree with Matt Quigley (Belfast). I was expecting a satisfying British crime thriller, especially with such a good cast, but I was disappointed. The film's script let it down, and although the acting was up to par, especially Colin Farrell as main guy Mitchel, with a nod to David Thewlis as 'famous film star' Keira Knightley's sidekick protector, and Anna Friel as Mitchel's sister, the potential to make this a gripping tale was not realised.
The dilemma of Mitchel (Farrell) coming out of prison, trying to go straight, but given his previously high profile in London's gang underworld of serious crime, finding this impossible, could have been developed into a dark moral story with possible redemption. But the disjointed progression of scenes with so many mis-matched and disturbed characters, while underlining the fact that 'we're all fxxxxd', as Mitchel says at one point, fails to make sense.
Everyone is screwed up: Charlotte (Keira Knightley) with all her money is now utterly vulnerable, Mitchel can't get away from his heavily criminal past, his sister can't overcome her addictions, Charlotte's protector, Jordan (Thewlis) is beyond help in drink and drugs. Even the doctor (Sanjeev Bhaskar) who befriends Mitchel and ends up with his sister is seen as utterly flawed. Gant (Ray Winstone), the underground criminal overlord is horrible and you know things are not going to end well.
The only redemption in this film comes to Charlotte. Mitchel's attempt to revenge his down-and-out friend's death rebounds on him badly and the irony of the knife he gave the friend becoming his own nemesis is unflinchingly bitter and cruel.
The film is over-littered with bad language and the screenplay is unconvincing. The violence is extreme and only visual reticence makes it watchable. In retrospect I can see the point of the film/story, the moral dilemmas, the effect of crime, money, drugs, drink, violence, on the human psyche, degrading it to the point of self-destruction and destruction of others, but despite the actors' every efforts to make the whole thing work, by the end you just feel the whole thing has just been an exercise in exposing the violence people are capable of and gathering as much of it as possible into one film. I was left feeling unsatisfied, queasy, and with little faith in human redemption which is not pleasant. Hardly entertainment!
Margot (2009)
Beyond the fantasy
"Margot" offers a vignette of ballerina Margot Fonteyn's life, the halcyon period of the sixties when her dancing career was revitalised by Rudolph Nureyev, his inspiration renewing her vigour and even making her look younger. This BBC film exaggerates, perhaps, the extent of that special relationship which was rumoured to have briefly gone beyond simply a dancing partnership, but this really does not matter.
The dramatic story of a famous ballet dancer married to a Panamanian revolutionary, her muse a glamorous Russian dancing defector, is great stuff for a film. And despite some slightly tedious repetitions of stylised interviews with Fonteyn as 'information fillers' the drama is convincing. I loved the combinations of dance performance with the personal story, cleverly realised so that the brilliant acting of Anne-Marie Duff could be seen in ballet scenes requiring drama rather than dance, and a body double seen from the back for the dance sequences. The dance elements were very well structured.
Margot's personal agonies, especially with her marriage to a consistently unfaithful husband who depended on her earnings to fund his revolutionary activities, are wonderfully realised through Duff's acting. And, as Margot frequently had to do in real life, she disguised the tragedies in her personal life putting on a front hiding the realities. Just when Margot is about to divorce Tito, he is shot and her feelings are tragically compromised.
I lived through this story, I saw Margot Fonteyn dance with Nureyev in the sixties and into the seventies. I KNOW how marvellous she was and how great their partnership. I remember the newspaper headlines when Tito Arias was shot. The bones of the story are dramatic enough. This film puts meat on them and Anne-Marie Duff's performance is fabulous. She is matched by Huisman as Nureyev, and Derek Jacobi produces a star turn as Frederick Ashton right down to dropping his fag ash on dancers, and his over-the-top theatricality. Lindsay Duncan is lovely as Madame - Ninette de Valois - but she could have been even more autocratic as de Valois was known for her strictures and perfectionism and ensuring her dancers observe her rules. An early scene when Margot is dismayed to find she has been made a "Guest Artiste" without her knowledge is a remarkable cameo piece.
All in all, this film is well worth watching, thoroughly absorbing, and enhanced by wonderful acting. Authentic details such as Margot's fur coats, Nureyev's woolly hats, Ashton's gestures with cigarettes, all add to the feel of the film. Buy the DVD, you won't regret it.
Silk (2007)
Silky smooth narrative film
Silk translates Alessandro Baricco's unusual novella into a film which succeeds in capturing the other-worldly atmosphere of the succinct and emotionally charged novel.
The story links French 19th-century idealism to the remote and closed feudal society of Japan in the context of French silkweaver, Baldadiou, who ambitiously sends his protégé, Herve Joncour, to Japan in search of undiseased silk-worm eggs. Herve and Baldabiou represent the never-ending quest of man for ideals and perfection. Herve is romantic and deeply loves his wife Helene though that does not stop him being mesmerised by Japan and its cultural foreign-ness, epitomised by a beautiful concubine with whom he becomes obsessed. Baldabiou is obsessed in finding the perfect silk-worm eggs and producing perfect silk, trying to emulate the beautiful Japanese light-as-a feather silk he'd once seen.
And of course, there is the Dante-esque journey - Herve's adventures travelling across the world from France to Japan at a hazardous and dangerous period when he risks his life each time is symbolic. Finding fulfilment or the disillusionment of ideals? The symbolic one-handed pool game which results in Baldabiou leaving his work and his town, and the death of Helene but the survival of her garden - all part of the story as a pared-down synthesis of man's troubled search for the meaning of life, and the film tries hard to capture this.
Baricco conjures a magical realism in his short-chaptered book. Francois Girard manages to recreate the beauty expressed in the well-chosen words of Baricco, and convey the poignant love story, through a hypnotic musical soundtrack, evocative narrative, subdued colour tones, and a gently paced style. The main weakness in the film lies in the actors and accents. Keira Knightley and Michael Pitt are miscast, and their accents are terrible. The Japanese characters appear contrived, even Sei Ashina as the silent concubine does not really convince. However, Alfred Molina never disappoints: he is excellent as Baldabiou, and Miki Nakatani is assured as Madame Blanche.
This film was a very expensive effort to conjure a story from a book in which language is the essence. It obviously never made back its outlay. Credit to Girard for the courage of his convictions but the result was not entirely satisfactory. Nevertheless, it is worth watching, but read the book - you'll see what I mean.