because you can't have too much entertainment... December 2002

'Captain Sirk'
Two of the finest films of the year have a Douglas Sirk fetish in common.

8 Women
Directed by: Francois Ozon Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Danielle Darreaux, Emmanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sevnier, and Firmine Richard

Francois Ozon is a resourceful and gifted director. The film he had wanted to remake, the very famous and funny The Women from 1939 was unavailable. (Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts are somehow involved and have been for years though it's clearly not a priority for either. Both of them have considerable power to get projects going in star driven Hollywood and the film has yet to be greenlit.) Rather than waiting for that mess to untangle Ozon dug around for a similar all diva extravaganza and found an old French play. In his delightful new film, 8 Women he's made it into both a musical and an homage to Douglas Sirk, possibly Hollywood's greatest director of melodramas (and currently very much in vogue.) Most importantly to the success of the stylized purposely stage-bound film, he corraled eight of France's best loved and most iconic screen talents to portray the title characters.

The plot at first seems to be merely an excuse for the luminosity of the stars and the silly and riveting production design and musical numbers. You've seem the basic setup a million times: There's only so many people in a house. One of them is murdered. Everyone else is suddenly a suspect and a potential next victim. But thankfully the screenplay doesn't rely solely on this abundant star wattage and visual feast but delights all by its lonesome with it's witty and twisted murder mystery.

The cast recently received a shared Best Actress award from the European Film Academy and it's easy to be bowled over by the collected talent on display. The murder victim is the man of the household, Marcel, and the suspects are eight Gallic marvels of world cinema. (The only obvious missing French phenoms are Binoche and Adjani...but then, this isn't 10 Women.) Richards plays the secretive cook, Beart is the archetypal sexy French maid, Ledoyen and Sevnier are Marcel's beautiful daughters and Darreaux is his wheelchaired mother-in-law. The standouts in the cast are Fanny Ardant as Marcel's estranged sister, the iconic and legendary Deneuve as his ice cold wife, and most especially, Isabelle Huppert, doing virtually a comedic riff on her earlier smashing star turn this year from The Piano Teacher.

The sleight of hand that Ozon and his game cast accomplish here is somewhat startling. While I considered it a fine farce for most of the running time, I was startled by the poignance of the payoff. The movie's shift in tone comes not as a subversion of the frothiness of the material but as a deepening of its heightened turmoils. After the grande dames and young stars of French cinema have all had their song and dance, after the last great song "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureuse" (There is no happy love), has sounded its last note, when they are lined up for their veritable curtain call, you may have to remind yourself that you're in a movie theater, so deserving are they all of a standing ovation. A-

"You see anything indirect is stronger, in many cases at least, because you leave it -or you hand it over to the imagination of your audience, you know? And I've always been trusting my audience to have imagination --Otherwise they should stay out of the cinema." -Douglas Sirk

Far From Heaven
Written and Directed by: Todd Haynes
Starring: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, and Cecilia Weston

It may sound blasphemous in the context of a film review, but criticism -or rather what we traditionally think of as criticism, can seem futile when confronted with a great work of art. Like any masterpiece, one doesn't question the style, which seems utterly important and essential to the substance. Or the technique. If you wouldn't want a brush stroke changed the most you can give is thanks to the artist. It seems unthinkable while watching Todd Haynes' latest film that it be anything other than what it is. It's anachronisms are vital to its existence. It is what it is.

The story is a carefully constructed, slightly modernized extension of an old 50s melodrama. Particular plot lines echo and pay homage to Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life. Cathy Whitaker runs a perfect 50s household but she is about to have a rude awakening as she discovers a dark secret about her perfect husband and the horrible truth about the intolerance of the perfect community that she lives in when she falls for her black gardener.

Far From Heaven's artistic gamble is to present the film as if it were decades old and its extraordinary look is a monument to the talents of the production team. Elmer Bernstein kicks the film off in high gear with his impossibly beautiful period appropriate score. Sandy Powell, possibly the greatest costume designer working, outdoes herself throughout with rich and vibrant character specific creations. Edward Lachman does the cinematographer and has the extremely difficult challenge of recreating the 50s technicolor surfaces, a now virtually extinct film technique. Mark Friedberg, the film's gifted production designer, makes an invaluable contribution as well. At first the Whitaker home seems delightful in its anachronistic 50s but as the film progresses the baroque exterior seems to cruelly imprison the simple characters. The surfaces in the film are almost unbearably gorgeous upon first viewing. But roiling beneath the beauty is a flood of emotion that became even more heartbreaking on a second viewing. On a third viewing it was something closer to devastation. Indeed, the only criticism I can offer is an indirect one. I fear that the movie is almost too adept at it's experiment. The style here at first masks but then informs and reveals the substance. Some viewers might not make it that far. Some people will never get beneath the surface to see things as they are. Pity, because this movie is not as elitist as it's formalism might suggest. Haynes wants to help the audience along the way. In fact, the closest his humanistic screenplay comes to a misstep is in an audience guiding moment when Cathy and Raymond ask each other (perhaps too) directly if people can look beneath the surface. "'Do you think we ever really do?" they inquire, hearts breaking along the way.

Throughout this rich film, Julianne Moore's astonishing performance as Cathy Whitaker is like a gentle guide into the art of acting. Like the extravagantly perfect production design which enhances the film, she is both surface and substance. If you're willing she'll take you beneath her 50s style line readings and deep into the heart of her character. For those audiences who take her hand, who look both through and beyond the eyepopping beauty and the adoring nod to old Hollywood, they'll see a beating heart at the center of this melodrama. The beautiful and relevant contemporary message is clear: Without emotional freedom we're all robbed of love's glory. Though the Whitakers and their community may be far from heaven, Todd Haynes' film is very close indeed to the divine. A

-Nathaniel

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