“Vulgar sentiment is so contagious.”

After the wonderful BBC productions of North and South and Wives and Daughters, I was a bit disappointed in Cranford. Based on the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford centers on life in a small Victorian English village. The acting in this mini-series is marvelous, the sets wonderful, but it’s disappointing in a lack-of-substance-Disney-meets-Victorian-England sort of way.

Some of the action concerns spinster sisters–circumspect Deborah (Eileen Atkins) and quiet Matty Jenkyns (Judi Dench)–major fixtures in the village of Cranford. Since Cranford is a community dominated by women, the arrival of Dr. Harrison (Simon Woods) a young, handsome and unattached doctor sends many of Cranford’s spinsters atwitter with romantic fantasies. Cranford is a hotbed for gossip, largely fueled by the overactive imagination of Miss Pole (Imelda Staunton), and Dr. Harrison’s courtship of a local lass, leads to a great deal of consternation for poor Miss Caroline Tomkinson (Selina Griffiths).

The village copes with the hysteria of French-paranoia, disease, poaching, various romances, stray Valentine’s cards, and even a wandering cow. In this bucolic, unrealistic setting, everyone has a second chance to repair their lives, and this includes Miss Matty’s revived romance with aging suitor Mr. Holbrook (Michael Gambon).

If you are the sort of person who recoils from the sentimentality of Dickens, then Cranford will, at times, make you cringe. Victorian England was a cruel, indifferent place for the poor, but in Cranford, humanity prevails in sugary, unrealistic fashion. Some of the very best sequences however concern Lady Ludlow (played exquisitely by the marvelously serene Francesca Annis). A widow who’s outlived all but one of her children, her youngest, Septimus, lives abroad and writes home only to request money. Lady Ludlow’s scenes are visually very different from other scenes in the film–dressed in greys and silvers, she seems bloodless, drained of life in opposition to the robust colour explosions of the countryside. Her fantastic home, while breathtakingly beautiful appears to be a lifeless mausoleum–especially when compared to the quaint, comfort of many of the village dwellings. Many of the villagers are caricatures, treated with affection by the script while Lady Ludlow is by far the most interesting character study in the film. Several scenes emphasize her opposition to the education of the peasants, and she refuses to employ anyone who can read and write. On one level, Lady Ludlow represents a long-lost era about to be challenged by the intrusion of the railroad and the revolutionary notions of education for the masses. Lady Ludlow’s belief in keeping the masses in their collective place, sets her in complete opposition to her manager, Mr. Carter (Philip Glenister) who actively encourages Harry Gregson (Axel Etel) the engaging, bright son of a local poacher. But in typical Cranford fashion, even Lady Ludlow has a chance to redeem herself on the way to a bittersweet lesson in humility.

For fans of British television costume drama, Cranford is very entertaining if you can just suspend some of the more over-the-top twee sections, but I prefer Wives and Daughters and North and South by far.

“The only ship that’s certain to come in has black sails.”

Murder and guilt are two recurring themes in the films of Woody Allen. Crimes and Misdemeanors makes my Top Film list, but other more recent Woody Allen films also chew over the same issues (Match Point & Scoop). At first glance Cassandra’s Dream may seem to be a lesser effort, but it’s a mistake to dismiss this film too quickly. Think of Cassandra’s Dream as a Greek tragedy, and you’ll be a lot happier with the film.

Cassandra’s Dream tells the story of two working class brothers Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) in London. Ian works at the family restaurant, but he doesn’t plan to stay there for long. Although the film does not examine Ian’s past, there are hints that Ian who burns with ambition and the quest for material wealth has had a series of failed business plans. His latest get-rich-quick scheme is to invest in ‘hotels’ in Southern California. Although Ian acts as though he’s doing his father a favour by ‘helping out’ in the restaurant, the shoe may be on the other foot. Ian never seems to actually work in the restaurant–instead the place seems to fill the function of a personal cash machine for Ian. When Ian meets an ambitious “high maintenance” actress, Angela Stark (Hayley Atwell), he comes under increasing financial pressure.

Terry, on the other hand, is ambitionless, and he’s in a loving, successful relationship. He’s content to remain as a mechanic, and from his boss’s repair shop, he ‘lends’ the flashiest sports cars to Ian. Terry’s secret vice is gambling, and unfortunately he’s not particularly good at it.

Ian and Terry enjoy a good relationship, but they are so alike in some ways and yet also so opposite that in some scenes they appear to be halves of the same person. While Terry is more like his father, Ian seems to take after his mother (Clare Higgins)–a woman who never allows her husband (John Benfield) to forget that he’s a loser who owes his salvation to her wonderful, millionaire brother, Howard (Tom Wilkinson). Howard–a wealthy plastic surgeon with clinics all over the world–looms like some distant god in the family’s life. Ian, who inherits his mother’s avarice longs to have the sort of lifestyle enjoyed by Uncle Howard, and he certainly doesn’t intend to work for his first million.

The family is thrilled at the news that Uncle Howard is arriving for a whirlwind visit to England, but it soon becomes horribly apparent that Howard is there for a reason. Howard’s mask of genial wealthy uncle slips, and underneath is a cold calculating man who expects his nephews to pay back all of his earlier generosity through a brutal murder.

Cassandra’s Dream develops with the cold clear lines of a Greek tragedy as Ian and Terry are sucked into their fate, and just as a Greek tragedy doesn’t function to answer extraneous issues, the film doesn’t answer all of the questions it raises. What’s so interesting here is the fallout from the crime. Ian only stands to benefit from the crime, and so to him the murder is just a hurtle to overcome on the path to his new rock and life lifestyle in California. On the other hand, the murder will not create any real benefit for Terry, and so to him the aftermath of the crime leaves him face to face with his old life and his addictions.

These characters face their flaws and are inevitably destroyed by their flaws. While Woody Allen does not seem to hit the right notes with his creation of the British working class (for that try Mike Leigh), nonetheless this examination of morality replaced by materialism is still great stuff.

“I’m tired of hanging out in cheap hotels, in pissed in beds, thinking I’m especially free.”

I am a fan of Doris Dorrie films–not that I’ve seen that many, but every one I’ve seen, I’ve loved. Add Am I Beautiful? (Ich bin Schon ? ) to the list of great Doris Dorrie films to watch.

Am I Beautiful?  examines the relationships of a group of diverse characters in Germany and Spain. Some of the lives of the characters connect in coincidental ways, and some of the characters are related to one another. All of these connections are not at first apparent, and for the first part of the film, you may find yourself wondering what on earth all these people have to do with one another. Don’t worry about it … just sit back and enjoy the action. Everything will become crystal clear by the end of this highly enjoyable, vibrant and life-affirming Dorrie film. Dorrie films are never downers–although sequences may appear to be heading in that direction. And in Am I Beautiful? as is Nobody Loves Me, there’s more than a touch of quirkiness.

The film begins in the stark sun of Spain with a young girl named Linda (Franka Potente). Claiming to be a deaf-mute, she’s hitching through the country depending on the charity (and gullibility) of well wishers.

Also in Spain is Klaus (Steffen Wink) who’s trying his best to persuade his estranged girlfriend Franziska (Anica Dobra) to join him in Spain. But Franziska is about to marry a man she’s known for 8 weeks.

Other significant characters include Franziska’s father, Herbert (Gottfried John) who argues, “All I wanted was an affair.” While Herbert congratulates himself on having a young mistress who asks for ‘nothing,’ disaster awaits him at the worst possible moment. Herbert’s neglected wife, Unna (Senta Berger) meanwhile has a few secrets of her own.

I normally don’t like films that weave together all these seemingly unconnected stories and relationships with a grand flourish. Sometimes these sorts of plots can be full of coincidence with a vast amount of audience manipulation. Am I Beautiful? is a wonderful film–clever, funny and yet also subtly serious. I loved it. In German with subtitles.

By the way, Doris Dorrie also co-wrote the script for the film, and if you ever get a chance, pick up one of her novels or collections of short stories. They’re wonderful.

“At the same time, it was my good deed.”

In my teens, I was lucky enough to see my first-ever foreign films–Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel), and Claire’s Knee (Eric Rohmer). Both films were a major revelation to me, and both films triggered a life-long love of French cinema.

Claire’s Knee (Le Genou de Claire) is film 5 in director Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales series, but it is not necessary to watch the other films in the series to make sense of Claire’s Knee. However, Rohmer films are really only for the serious French film aficionado. Rohmer’s critics charge that his films are pretentious and boring, and while it is true that Rohmer films are not noted for their action sequences, nonetheless, I find his films fascinating and re-watch many of them when I have the chance. Most of Rohmer’s films are full of conversations between characters, and if you find the characters interesting, or if the issues they face intrigue you, then you may enjoy Rohmer films. However, if you dislike one Rohmer film, you will probably dislike them all. And no one seems to be blase on the subject–he’s a director whose films you either love and rave about or you loathe and avoid.

Rohmer seems to have an obsession with French people on holiday, and Claire’s Knee is not an exception to that. In Claire’s Knee, 35-year-old diplomat Jerome (Jean-Claude Brialy) visits his holiday home located near the French-Swiss border at Lake Annecy. He is preparing to sell the property prior to his upcoming marriage to long-time girlfriend, Lucinde. Here Jerome meets writer and long-time acquaintance, Aurora (Aurora Cornu), who is staying with a female friend and her 2 teenage daughters, Laura (Beatrice Romand) and Claire (Laurence de Monaghan). Aurora professes to be in the midst of a struggle with a fictional character–an older man who is obsessed with younger girls. Jerome makes a strange bargain with Aurora, and he agrees that he will encourage Laura to fall in love with him. Aurora claims that observing the relationship Jerome has with Laura will help her solve the plot difficulties she is experiencing. Is Aurora’s interest in encouraging a relationship between Jerome and Laura motivated by dispassionate intellectual curiosity as she claims, or is there something darker afoot? And why does Jerome agree to indulge Aurora?

But Laura, in spite of her youth and inexperience, possesses a charming wisdom that unnerves Jerome, and then Laura’s half-sister Claire arrives. Claire is much less introspective and appears to be more experienced. Jerome discovers that Claire “troubles” him with a “real and undefined desire,” and he quickly becomes obsessed with the idea of touching Claire’s knee.

Jerome plays a strange game. On the one hand, he’s getting married to Lucinde because their long-standing relationship has never dulled–in spite of the fact that during a confession to Aurora, Jerome admits that both he and Lucinde have ’strayed.’ Jerome argues that he doesn’t “look at women any more,” and the sense is that Jerome has now decided, at age 35, to ’settle down.’ Passion seems to have little to do with it, and while Jerome professes disinterest in all other women, there’s a subtle hint or two that he wouldn’t exactly be averse to a holiday fling with Aurora if she felt so inclined. Aurora, on the other hand, makes one or two slight but significant comments about Jerome’s relationships with women.

Aurora delicately avoids any physical entanglement with Jerome and instead appears to be intrigued with him as a ‘character’ in a literary sense. Explaining that characters have their “own logic” Aurora maintains that in a novel sometimes what doesn’t happen is as interesting as what does happen. The idea of the interest in non-action is never clearer than in Rohmer’s films. In Claire’s Knee the fascination with the non-occurrence is carried out with sheer perfection, and the interest remains in the question–’what actions will a character take in a certain situation?’ Rohmer is a very prolific director, but the languorous film Claire’s Knee remains one of my very favourites. Keep an eye open for a very young Fabrice Luchini in the role of Vincent, Laura’s boyfriend.

 “They don’t come much darker than you, do they?”

All Or Nothing At All is a British made-for-television three-part miniseries starring the talented Hugh Laurie as con man and gambler Leo Hopkins. The film opens at a party at the gorgeous multi-million pound country home of Leo, his wife, Jane (Jessica Turner) and their three children. To Leo’s acquaintances, he appears to have the perfect life: Leo’s a happily married, successful financial analyst. Envied by his society friends, everyone wonders just how Leo “does it.” He seems to have the Midas touch.

The story gradually strips away the layers of lies surrounding Leo’s life. A practiced con man, Leo cashes in on the greed of his friends and relatives, but since Leo is also addicted to gambling, it’s just a matter of time before his life crumbles into ruin.

The film is rather well executed. Hugh Laurie is perfectly cast as Leo, and he’s surrounded here by an equally excellent cast–including Bob Monkhouse as his boss, Giles. Leo is funny, unassuming and seems to be non-threatening (in contrast to some of his sleazier friends, Duncan, for example). Leo appears to be just eccentric enough to be a financial wizard, so when he promises his friends impossibly high returns on investments, they’re all too happy to believe it. Leo is particularly good at deceiving women, and we see the three main women he manipulates–his wife Jane, his long-suffering and far-too-devoted secretary Marion (Pippa Guard) and Diane (Sioban McCarthy)–a woman who places Leo’s insane bets.

It’s the characters here that make the film so rich. Leo moves in a society that’s largely superficial–a society in which markers of affluence are more important than how that affluence was achieved. And since a frank discussion of money making is considered bad form, Leo can acquire his friends’ money with few questions asked.

On the surface, Leo is a very likeable fellow, and he’s so likeable that it’s easy to see how he gets away with so much. On the other hand, some of his greed-bag friends are pushy and unpleasant. We tend to think of con men as greedy, mean spirited people, but Leo is portrayed as someone who’s largely oblivious to the damage he causes, and if he does stop to think about what he does, he marks his actions up to ‘wanting people to like him.’ The acting is excellent, and the conclusion isn’t easy to predict–in spite of all the very obvious paths this story takes. At one point, the film hints that Leo has fabricated other parts of his life; in an early scene, he slips when recalling his university days, but the film, rather frustratingly, just hints at this and doesn’t explore this aspect of Leo’s life any further. If you like British television drama, then there’s an excellent chance that you’ll enjoy this entertaining drama. Directed by Andrew Grieve.

Nothing ignites in this dull drama

As a fan of Catherine Deneuve, I finally got my hands on a copy of The Scene of the Crime, a film by Andre Techine. Techine films are hit-and-miss for me, but since the film includes Deneuve, I had high hopes.

The Scene of the Crime (Le Lieu de Crime, La Mauvaise Herbe) is told through the eyes of a thirteen year old boy, Thomas (Nicolas Gerardi) who’s off picking flowers in the countryside near his grandparents’ home, when Martin, an escaped convict (Wadeck Stanczak) grabs the boy and demands he return later with money. Thomas does manage to wheedle money from his grandfather, and his efforts to get that money reveal that this is a troubled boy who’s prone to storytelling, exaggeration and flat out lying. But Thomas is the product of a broken home–a father who doesn’t have much time for him, and a mother whose need for independence and self-expression led to the creation of a small nightclub–much to the dismay of her disapproving ex-spouse, parents and religious leaders.

Thomas returns to the escaped convict only to fall foul of another more violent escapee. Martin should take the hint and leave, but instead, he spies the gorgeous Lili Ravenel (Catherine Deneuve) and decides to stick around….

The Scene of the Crime fails on several levels. This ultimately unsatisfying film tries to depict Lili as a character who’s stifled by her life in the small town, and who falls so hard for the mysterious, passionate stranger (Martin) that she throws caution (let alone common sense and reason) to the winds. Somehow Lili’s actions don’t make sense, and Lili and Martin just don’t make a credible pair of lovers. Nothing against Martin. Lili’s husband also seems way off her circuit too. But perhaps that’s the problem; Lili just doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ anywhere–with her husband, child or lover. No wonder she wants to run away….
In French with subtitles.

“It’s beyond obsession.”

There have been times in my life when I’ve wondered if my love of film was a little out-of-control, and so when I heard about the film Cinemania, I knew I had to watch it. This documentary explores the film fanaticism of a handful of New Yorkers, and I wanted to see just how fanatical they are.

The film fanatics in Cinemania leave me in the dust when it comes to the pursuit of film watching. For a start, I no longer go to the cinema(thanks to cell phone use), but some of the film’s subjects see 3, 4 or 5 films a day. One man admits to seeing 1000 films over the course of a month.

This handful of cinephiles all live in New York, and New York is apparently THE place to be for film fanatics:

There’s Jack, who lives off of an inheritance
Bill who moved to New York in the first place thanks to a Fassbinder Festival
Harvey who will “see almost anything you put in front of him.”
Eric who argues, “film buffs do not socialize.”
Cantankerous Roberta who refuses to own a television set.

All of these cinephiles admit that films have an enormous role in their lives–often substituting for relationships and social interaction. The camera follows each of the subjects back to their homes: one man lives with his mother, another has a roommate, but the others apparently live alone–alone except that is for the stacks and stacks of movie memorabilia, programmes, and drink containers. At this point, I realized that Cinemania–at this level–is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

While our subjects struggle with the daily decision of which films to see (and which to miss), this dilemma goes so far as a computer ‘decision-making’ programme. And all of the cinephiles seem to have favorite seats in the cinema and are prepared to go to drastic lengths in order to enjoy their films. Jack, for example, would like to use a cell phone to call the projectionist to complain if there are problems. One subject even arranges his eating and bathroom habits so not to interfere with his film watching.

Jack’s sense of humour fuses with a voyeuristic fascination, and he’s not shy about directing that voyeurism towards his own obsession and the obsession of the other cinephiles in the film. He admits that he’d enjoy making love to Rita Hayworth but only if it could be in black and white as those dark lips are part of her sex appeal. I would love to know a little bit more about the subjects, and while we learn who likes what, we never really know what started this life-long obsession in the first place.

Chances are, if you are a bit nutty about cinema, you will enjoy Cinemania–a quirky, good natured look at why we love film and just how far over the edge some of us are willing to go to indulge that love….
Directed by Angela Christlieb and Stephen Kijak

Disappointing

Butterfly Collectors is a made-for-British television series that promises a great deal but then fails to deliver. Ultimately disappointing, the story explores the complicated relationship between a middle-aged policeman John Mckeown (Pete Postlethwaite) soured by his personal life and by his job and Dex Lister (Jamie Draven) a teenager who’s picking up the considerable slack left by his absent mother.

The film begins at night with two young men running away from the scene of a crime. Police investigating the murder of a junkyard owner arrest Dex and his friend Billy (Ben Crompton). At first Mckeown thinks he’s dealing with a typical scenario–a robbery that ends in murder committed by two young thugs. Then he accidentally discovers that Dex is bringing up his younger brother and sister alone. With his father dead and his prostitute mother missing, Dex not only makes ends meet, but keeps the home immaculate. Mckeown can’t help but be impressed by Dex, and he becomes convinced that Dex is innocent of murder.

Mckeown becomes involved with Dex, befriending him and employing him to replace tile in his home. Gradually Mckeown goes out farther and farther on a limb for Dex–lying to Social Services and even engaging in petty crime. But then some discrepancies in Dex’s story cause Mckeown to question the teenager’s innocence, and he begins to suspect that Dex may have murdered his parents. The friendship, undermined by suspicion and distrust rapidly unravels….

All of the film makes sense up to this point, and the first episode was intriguing. It’s fairly easy to believe that Mckeown, already soured by his job and alienated from the rest of the police force, would see an opportunity to ‘make a difference.’ Dex and his siblings seem to offer a perfect chance for Mckeown–almost a second chance really–to make up for the disappointments in his own life.

But by the second episode, the plot unravels as it takes off in some rather silly directions, and the conclusion offers one of the most disappointing sellouts I’ve seen in a long time. After leading us up the garden path as to the facts about the murder of the junkyard owner and Dex’s complicated motives and involvement, the plot takes a silly, implausible turn. Ultimately, the plot played around with Dex’s character far too much. Not to mention all the loose ends left as the credits roll….

The film is set in Manchester and includes a range of accents. I had no problem following the dialogue, but the person who watched the film with me complained about ‘not getting’ a great deal of the dialogue. From director Jean Stewart.

“All sorrows look alike.”

A Sunday In the Country (Un Dimanche a la Campagne), a film from Bertrand Tavernier is a seemingly simple tale of the events that take place one Sunday. Graceful, elegant and laced with ineffable sadness, the film is set just prior to WWI. The film begins with an elderly French painter, Monsieur Ladmiral (Louis Ducreux) who lives with his housekeeper in the French countryside. It’s a long-held tradition for Ladmiral’s son, middle-aged Gonzague (Michel Aumont) to bring his “pious” wife, Marie-Therese (Genevieve Mnich) and their three children to spend the day in the country. The film begins at the start of the day, with Ladmiral preparing to walk down to the station to meet his son and his family. These early scenes establish the long-term relationship between Ladmiral and his housekeeper–a woman who works from dawn to long past dusk and who understands her employer intimately.

This particular Sunday is like all the other Sundays in the past. Ladmiral walks to the station and walks back home with his guests. His boisterous grandsons race to their grandfather’s home while Ladmiral and his son chat amiably, but there are undercurrents beneath the surfaces of these relationships. Ladmiral doesn’t seem to like his daughter-in-law much, but polite acceptance disguises the brief silent acknowledgements of disappointment.

The day unfolds with wonderful food, good company and glorious surroundings. And while the hours unfold, memories are stirred. Gonzague muses on his own would-be talents as a painter, and Ladmiral snoozes in the sun. While Gonzague and his wife creep away from the sleeping Ladmiral, we realise that the visit to the country is a duty, an obligation painstakingly repeated every weekend, but perhaps not particularly enjoyed.

The film’s mood underscored by the warmth and the doze-inducing peaceful summer day erupts with the arrival of Ladmiral’s beautiful daughter, Irene (Sabine Azema) in a motorcar. Glamorous, independent and yet obviously emotionally fragile, Irene explodes onto the scene making a rare, long-overdue and unexpected visit. Clearly her father’s favorite, and worshipped by her nephews, her personality overflows into the entire household, disrupting the afternoon.

Scenes from A Sunday in the Country could easily be lifted from impressionist paintings–the lush garden, the dancers in the café, and it seems that Ladmiral was part of that world. This is a bittersweet film that lightly glides over life’s disappointments while Tavernier successfully recreates an elegant pre-WWI world–a world that is soon to be loss forever. If you enjoy this film, I also recommend The Shooting Party.

“I was only showing them my new knickers.”

The British film Wish You Were Here from director David Leyland is set in England in the 1950s. It’s the story of Lynda (Emily Lloyd)–a rather unusual and rebellious young girl who never fits into her nice, quiet, respectable, hard-working family. Several incidents from Lynda’s childhood demonstrate that she is going to be an outspoken, determined individual, but no one in Lynda’s family seems able to understand her, and she gradually drifts farther apart from the rest of her relatives.

After the death of her mother, Lynda is brought up by her strait-laced father who runs a barber/tobacconist shop. He expects Lynda to eventually run the hairdressing half of the family business, but after a brief–and hilarious–attempt as a hairdressing apprentice, Lynda makes it clear that she won’t allow anyone to predict or influence her destiny. Lynda’s dad is mystified and disgusted, but Lynda’s “boring” younger sister–who plans to join the army–fits in quite nicely into the family image. It is Lynda who remains an embarrassment and a complete enigma to her father.

It’s clear to the local males in Lynda’s small hometown, that she’s a bit of a goer, and she’s certainly not shy about seeking and getting male attention. Unfortunately, her first sexual experiences leave her feeling emptier than ever, and her attention-seeking rebellion eventually leads her straight to a cynical older man, bookie Eric (Tom Bell) who degrades her even further. Everyone in Lynda’s life underestimates her. Men use and discard her, and even her father fails to see beyond Lynda’s rejection of established social behaviour–all he feels is shame. Even when Lynda is dragged off to a psychiatrist, he is completely at a loss when dealing with Lynda. The session begins with the psychiatrist in control, but he rapidly finds himself completely outmaneuvered by Lynda when he tries to get her to tell him all the swear words she knows (and she claims her first word was ‘bum’).

Emily Lloyd was a mere 16 years old when she starred in this film. Her acting is nothing less than superb. Lynda is an intriguing, steely character–bordering on the antisocial–and yet desperate to belong. She is irrepressible–and yet she is completely oppressed by her family. Emily Lloyd manages to portray all the contrasting qualities of this complex role with astonishing maturity and vivacious charm; she is truly delightful. I found myself cheering at Lynda’s exploits during many of the scenes as she refuses to bow down to convention and admit defeat regardless of the social consequences.

Wish You Were Here is based on the early life of Cynthia Payne–an infamous British madam. No mention of Payne pops up in the film, but the film does serve as a companion piece to the film Personal Services–the story of Payne’s brothel–which catered to the kinky rich. This is truly a beautiful, thought-provoking, positive film–at times funny, and at other times sad, but always triumphant. Note the director’s use of light and windows throughout the film.