Like someone you're in love with, it's not perfect...but, you are still in love.
Like an impossible wedding cake ( a simile mentioned earlier by Mark) that towers so far as to be fantastic...."Rosalie" portrays (in very imaginative form) a world that never truly existed. Yes, the basest ingredients are real but, then they are lifted into a sort of dream land. With the "advanced" technologies of the thirties and forties the film is able to stage a play far different (in a good way) far from what could be done by the operas of the 17th and 19th centuries. However they are the natural descendants of those "purely analog" experiences.
Then there are the stars....STARS. The success of "Rosalie" is that it is good enough to draw one in and make one forget that this time period was full of turmoil (including revolution) ... scrubbed clean with added layers of frosting. The cinema then was a very, very, successful escape from the grim toughness of "real life" in the Thirties. What I like the very best is that IRONY has been banished. A good enough reason to recommend it! I'm reminded a little of the "Wizard of Oz" (with the cast including the brilliant Frank Morgan and the "Tin Man" himself, Ray Bolger) ...a complete fantasy. Rosalie has one foot in the fantasy world of the "Wizard" and another in the undeniable talents of the stars...E. Powell and N. Eddy.
The miracle here is that they can "make us believe", not with the intensity of the audiences when it was released (one can only imagine their fascination) but, with a small portion of that. And that fragment is quite a portion indeed.
Sit back, relax (with a bottle of wine) and look back to an idealized play on the world...gone forever except on film.
Imagine it in full color and 3D and you'd have a 21st century ground breaking (almost hallucinogenic) masterpiece! However,I'm happy with it just the way it is.
Like an impossible wedding cake ( a simile mentioned earlier by Mark) that towers so far as to be fantastic...."Rosalie" portrays (in very imaginative form) a world that never truly existed. Yes, the basest ingredients are real but, then they are lifted into a sort of dream land. With the "advanced" technologies of the thirties and forties the film is able to stage a play far different (in a good way) far from what could be done by the operas of the 17th and 19th centuries. However they are the natural descendants of those "purely analog" experiences.
Then there are the stars....STARS. The success of "Rosalie" is that it is good enough to draw one in and make one forget that this time period was full of turmoil (including revolution) ... scrubbed clean with added layers of frosting. The cinema then was a very, very, successful escape from the grim toughness of "real life" in the Thirties. What I like the very best is that IRONY has been banished. A good enough reason to recommend it! I'm reminded a little of the "Wizard of Oz" (with the cast including the brilliant Frank Morgan and the "Tin Man" himself, Ray Bolger) ...a complete fantasy. Rosalie has one foot in the fantasy world of the "Wizard" and another in the undeniable talents of the stars...E. Powell and N. Eddy.
The miracle here is that they can "make us believe", not with the intensity of the audiences when it was released (one can only imagine their fascination) but, with a small portion of that. And that fragment is quite a portion indeed.
Sit back, relax (with a bottle of wine) and look back to an idealized play on the world...gone forever except on film.
Imagine it in full color and 3D and you'd have a 21st century ground breaking (almost hallucinogenic) masterpiece! However,I'm happy with it just the way it is.