By Robin E. Simmons
For your consideration: a wry character study, two exceptional period pieces, a classic crime story and a slapstick comedy.
THE MAID
Raquel (Catalina Saavedra) has been a devoted maid for 23 years, working for an upper class Chilean household. But she has become embittered. She is ailing and can no longer care for the family alone. Matriarch Pilar (Claudia Celedon), trapped by guilt, refuses to let Raquel go, even though it’s clear the long-time maid is, shall we say, coming unglued. Instead, Pilar hires more help, further aggravating Raquel’s delicate state of mind and throwing her into a jealous rage.
The once seemingly happy home quickly becomes a stage for Raquel’s dirty tricks as she attempts to drive away anyone who threatens to take her place. The darkly comedic results are weirdly endearing. THE MAID (LA NANA) was a 2009 Golden Globe© nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. (Spanish with English Subtitles.) Oscilloscope.
VATEL
Gerard Depardieu is Vatel, the Martha Stewart to the Prince de Conde when the Sun King, Louis XIV, drops by for a banquet. This lavish period drama, a French production directed by Roland Joffe, from an original French screenplay by Jeanne Labrune that was adapted for an English version by playwright Tom Stoppard. The story is based on a real man and an actual incident.
The time is 1671. Julian Glover is Prince Conde, who is bankrupt but seeks a royal appointment to wage war on the contumelious Dutch. If he can put on a lavish enough reception, then Julian Sand’s King Louis may reverse his fortunes. But all depends on master steward Vatel creating a big enough spectacle — on credit with promises of payment after-the-fact –- for the king and his sycophants. But in between the King and Vatel there is Uma Thurman’s Anne de Montausier, the King’s beautiful, and not quite morally benumbed “lady-in-waiting.” Tim Roth is the magniloquent Marquis de Lauzan, one of the monarch’s carousing buddies. Murray Lachlan Young is the repellent king’s brother with an unquenchable penchant for buggering young boys.
More than any movie of recent memory, this remarkable film from 2000 is about indulgence and display in conflict with the deadly mold of moral decay festering under the glitzy surface. The staggeringly extravagant, unrestrained yet desperate festival at the center of this ultimately tragic melodrama evokes an alternate world that is both past and very much present. On display is a social class politically neutralized by the addictive pursuit of pleasure. The incredible production design alone is worth the ticket. But this is much more than an elaborate costume drama as the brilliant and conflicted artist Vatel discovers his conscience. I love this fabulous moral fable based on fact. It is a rare and satisfying feast for the eyes — and mind. Miramax.
MALENA
Giuseppe Tornatore, who gave us the award winning CINEMA PARADISO, delivers another mindful political manifesto also set in a sleepy Sicilian village during WWII, but this time disguised as a coming-of-age story. Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) is a bike-riding adolescent still in short pants who is obsessed with the voluptuous and mysterious Melena (Monica Bellucci), who becomes a widow and prostitute all the while under the envious eyes of the village women and the lustful gaze of the men. When Melena is tried for adultery and later cruelly punished by the townspeople, only Renato knows her true story. Melena is of course a symbol of Italy. Her travails are watched over and guarded by the seemingly helpless and insignificant Renato (he daily lights candles for her in the church).
The metaphors of this 2000 movie may be obvious and the story sometimes rambling, but they are more then compensated by the beautiful location of the timeless village on the coast of Sicily. Ennio Morricone’s score and the exquisite cinematography by Lajo Koltai must share star billing with the two leads in this heart-wrenching story of prejudice, jealousy, hate, sexual awakening and war. Italian with English subtitles. Miramax.
UN FLIC
“Un flic” translates as “the cop.” This stylish, noirish 1975 crime film is the final work of Jean-Pierre Melville, one of the great French directors of the 50s and 60s. Melville has been called the creator of the modern gangster film and a major influence on such directors as Martin Scorsese, John Woo and Quentin Tarantino. The great-looking widescreen transfer is especially fine-tuned to the muted shades of night and fog – always a great setting for action and suspense.
Richard Crenna is a nightclub owner and the fearless, brilliant head of a gang of bank robbers. When they knock over a small bank, one of them is wounded. It’s not long until burned-out detective Alain Delon, Crenna’s old friend, takes an interest in the case and begins piecing the puzzle together. Meanwhile, Crenna, using the stolen loot, plans an even bigger heist. This time it’s a trainload of mob money. But, as fate would have it, both men continue a serious, secretive, relationship with the same woman, Catherine Deneuve. Get the picture?
The almost unbearable tension builds as the vectors of friendship, love and betrayal inexorably converge in a memorable and hard-boiled finale. Released in America as “Dirty Money,” this is the director’s original cut. French with English subtitles. Anchor Bay.
THE ICE RINK
Jean-Phillipe Toussainte is a Belgian novelist with a cult following. His feather-light, carefree touch as writer and director makes THE ICE RINK/LA PATINOIR from 1999 a very cool and refreshing diversion. It’s hard not to be reminded of Francois Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT, or a carefully choreographed Jacque Tati comedy of manners and errors — and eventual chaos. Bruce Campbell stars as a hunky American hockey player who arrives on the ice arena set of a French “hockey romance” film with a cast made up of the entire Lithuanian National Hockey Team. There are serious problems: the team speaks no French and the crew cannot skate. Tom Novembre, the director of the film-within-the-film, is under tremendous pressure to meet an impossible deadline for the Venice Film Festival. The eye-catching Doloras Chaplin, Charlie’s granddaughter, plays an amorous international ice-show star in love with the square-jawed Campbell. I enjoyed this funny, slapstick look at the art of love and filmmaking. A great soundtrack includes Placebo and David Bowie. (English, French, Italian, Lithuanian with English Subtitles.) Kino.
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