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Queen Kelly (1932)
The Swamp
Scandalous, characteristically grotesque parable of human degradation from director Eric Von Stroheim (Greed). Its original title was to be The Swamp, an appropriate description of the noxious mire in which the characters find themselves engulfed and (in this version anyway) overwhelmed. It is difficult to review this film given that approximately a third or so remains extant. The film was made over the final months of 1928 and early 1929, but production was halted at the request of star Gloria Swanson, whose production company was partly involved in its financing. The complete film was planned at some five hours running time. What remains is some seventy minutes of a complete first act and a lengthy fragment of a later bit of action set in East Africa which is included in the most recent restoration print (1985), along with production stills and intertitles which explain the main thrust of the missing pieces and the remainder of the story. As such what we have here is a work in progress, a segment of a complete work which makes any judgment upon its overall thematic coherence, direction, and execution speculative at best, moot at worst. Nonetheless students of film and film buffs in general will not want to miss an opportunity to see this fascinating bit of late twenties Hollywood history, not least of all because it was the last studio project for the much-maligned Von Stroheim. Having sat by and watched his masterpiece Greed torn apart by financiers and having the plug pulled on this one by none less than his own leading lady, he can't but have felt betrayed by the enchroacing commercialism in a medium of which he was proving a consummate artist. It is little wonder that Billy Wilder would cast him with gleeful sadism as the devoted butler to Swanson's decomposing harridan in Sunset Boulevard with all due historical irony, and perhaps it it even more fitting that Von Stroheim handled himself which such composure and dignity in the role.
Fortunately, Queen Kelly was shot in sequence, so the first seventy minutes or so is a coherent and well balanced bit of outrageous social hysteria. Set in a fictitious European kingdom of some sort, the events concern the pending engagement of mad Queen Seena Owen with the less than willing aristocratic playboy Walter Bryon, who prefers riding carriage horses to the hoots and hollers of female courtiers who bet their underwear on the outcome of the race. While the Queen strolls around her palace naked (strategically covered by well-placed objects, bits of scenery and a long-haired white cat), her eyes burning with paranoia and jealousy, Bryon encounters a young (Irish) convent girl (Swanson) with whom he falls instantly in love. Their meeting takes place one day whilst the prince is on manoeuvres with his regiment and the girl is out walking with her classmates under the supervision of nuns. Noticing that her bloomers have fallen around her ankles, the prince laughs and taunts her. Eventually seeing the funny side of it, the young lady returns his flirting glances, much to the shock of her protectors. The prince later conspires to meet her again by starting a fire in the convent (!), and 'rescues' her for an intimate dinner at the palace where Swanson is memorably framed by the burning flames of a roaring fire as Bryon devours and undresses her with his eyes.
The film exudes raw sexuality in almost every scene, concentrating on the hypocritical schizm between desire and propriety. Though romance and love seem to be in question, and Bryon makes an impassioned plea for his love for the young girl, there are few wholesome emotions on view here. From (literally) fire-fuelled lust and arrogant recklessness to enraged passion and sexual jealousy, the film teems with vileness. The world of the noble classes is opulent and packed with beautiful visual detail in typical Von Stroheim fashion, but is empty and evil in a way which makes all that follows an ever-darker descent into the nether regions of human degradation, climaxing with an extraordinary confrontation between Swanson and Owen where the Queen literally horse-whips her rival and drives her from the palace. In the version of the film released in 1931, it ends shortly after with Swanson throwing herself into the river and drowning, a fittingly melodramatic and damning end to a damned affair.
However, this was, as mentioned, merely the first act in a much longer and more layered study of the process of self-discovery and self-realisation, and intertitles explain that rather than perishing here, the girl is rescued and embarks on a wholly different adventure which takes her to German East Africa where her dying aunt runs a brothel. The story takes an increasingly bizarre turn as the old lady forces the girl into marriage with a loathsome, lecherous, beast of a man (played with festering glee by Tully Marshall). The restored footage (discovered in the 1960s) climaxes with an even more literal and disturbing rendition of the marriage/death scene from Greed, where literally over the dying body of her aunt, Swanson is married to Marshall, who is photographed to appear like a huge, white spider (an impression aided by the fact that he moves on wooden crutches and creeps like a predator sneaking up on prey) with soulless eyes and a body which seems to be decaying from inside, only gradually reaching the visible extremities as we meet him. Unfortunately, the footage ends at this point, and only scattered stills and intertitles briefly summarise what seems to have been a variant on the Marquis de Sade's Justine, where only by acknowledging and embracing one's basest nature can you rise and triumph over your enemies. Alas, without the benefit of the actual film to discuss, we can't really judge how successful a moral message this might have been.
As is, Queen Kelly is never less than fascinating. Von Stroheim's characteristic concerns are present, as is his penchant for grotesquerie and his explicit contempt for society, hypocrisy, and repression. It is wonderfully photographed by Gordon Pollock and Paul Ivano to enhance the richly venal world in which it is set. The original score by Adolph Tandler becomes repetitive, but this is as much because it has been added to the later sequences following its (re)discovery, and it, one presumes, like the film, is incomplete. It is certainly well worth seeing, though any conclusions as to its overall qualities are obviously tentative, as is any judgment of its potential contribution either to cinema on the whole, or a moral, parablistic cinema in particular.
Dancing at Lughnasa (1998)
Irish Stage, Irish Screen: An unhappy marriage
Watchable but instantly forgettable film of Brian Friel's award-winning play which provides its greatest pleasures through the strong performances of its ensemble cast. Five independent-minded sisters living in Donegal in the mid 1930s face the possibility of change when economic and emotional circumstances conspire against them. The return of their brother from religious missions in Africa signals the beginning, and as the pagan festival of Lughnasa, which celebrates the harvest and forebodes the coming of winter, is celebrated around them, they must come to terms with changes in their own relatively comfortable middle class world. The ten year old son of one of them views events with a nostalgic eye which nonetheless sees the hardship and heartbreak which occurs around him.
Despite director Pat O'Connor's valiant attempts to open out' the play, the film is still extremely theatrical. The inclusion of landscape shots and the restaging of certain scenes in outdoor locations unavailable in the theatre does not really make the film cinematic. It merely adds visuals to what is still a complex series of linguistic exchanges which delineate and explore character. Authentic production design and costuming and the persistent presence of a traditional-themed score by Bill Whelan contribute to the feeling of the film, and with the help of good accent work by the cast, it manages to successfully evoke a feeling of time and place. However it remains an extremely well produced stage play on film, and is still bound by blocking and staging conventions which allow the actors to meet and greet one another to exchange their thoughts and feelings. The closest the film comes to a visual symbolic system is the use of dance and ritual to underscore the social and emotional tensions. The undercurrent of paganism which defines the relationships between people and their sense of the cosmos is constantly evoked (as it was in the play), and the film begins with a credit sequence featuring images of African tribes people in traditional costumes. But other than the climactic dance scene where the sisters celebrate their sisterhood to the strains of ceili music, the film rarely manages to escape the enclosed and cerebral world of the stage version.
But paradoxically, the reliance on actors plying their trade on well written words (rather than visuals) is the thing which saves the film from itself. Meryl Streep gives a convincing performance (and manages a creditable accent) as the repressed, authoritarian schoolteacher who heads the female clan, and she is more than matched by Michael Gambon's endearing performance as the slightly baffled priest whose exposure to the customs and rituals of Africa have coloured his perceptions of home. The rest of the cast (the non-stars, so to speak) are equally good, particularly Sophie Thompson as the simple minded Rose and Kathy Burke as the chain smoking Maggie. Catherine McCormack and Brid Brennan (the latter a veteran of the Abbey Theatre production) have less showy roles, but work distinctive characterisations in with those of the others with ease and skill. Supporting male performances from Rhys Ifans and young Darrell Johnston are also good, and the film also comes with a rich voice over provided by Gerard McSorley (who played the part of the the child at an adult remembering in the stage version).
This aspect of the film alone is probably worth the time and attention required to view it, but on the whole it is a less rewarding experience than the play itself. While an unfair basis upon which to criticise a work of adaptation, the material was perhaps fundamentally unsuited to cinematic treatment. Though Frank McGuinness has done his best to translate the themes and character issues, and has successfully done so insofar as it applies to theme and character, this is not so much a film version as a film of the play with some additional settings and scenes which prevent it from becoming completely unwatchable. What power it has comes from the power of the play, and it is mostly evinced at the level of verbal discourse. Theatrical adaptation is a minefield for film makers and has produced varying results in the past. Dancing at Lughnasa does not distinguish itself in the annals of this sub-section of film history, but for those patient enough with its lack of genuine cinematic interest, it offers certain pleasures which should pass the time painlessly enough.
The Avengers (1998)
Saving the World Without Substance
A simultaneous U.S./European release date should always give pause for thought. Sometimes it works out, (The Addams Family), but it usually signals distributor anxiousness that negative Stateside word of mouth will destroy the film's chance of success. In this case, Warner Brothers were probably hoping that sympathetic English fans of the original TV series would deliver some positive words which could be used to publicise the film , given that they omitted the press from preview screenings.
The Avengers, in the final event, is just as terrible as the portents suggested. Substituting noise and spectacle for the narrative cleverness often displayed by its predecessor and totally unconvincing on the level of cool unflappability to which it aspires, the film is a cold, irritating fantasy film for ten year old boys which fails even to use the charisma of its stars effectively.
Though one could argue that the weak storyline is a homage to the rather obscure nature of the original series, there is a sense that it runs deeper than that. The dialogue is weak and obvious at every turn and with Fiennes and Thurman struggling against no end of supposedly ironic one-liners, there is no time for the fabled MacNee/Rigg chemistry to develop.
Meanwhile the film revels in explosions and Michael Kamen's over the top and inappropriate action movie score, hoping that perhaps the distraction will prevent people noticing that nothing whatsoever of interest is going on on screen.
The final straw is the waste of Sean Connery as a completely non threatening villain whose plans to manipulate the weather are vaguely motivated and at best another poor in-joke about British culture along with the constant forced references to good manners and tea drinking. Clad in kilt and toting lines from Shakespeare, Connery is curiously flat. Despite a supporting cast of familiar British comedians, so is everyone else, including Fiennes, who struggles with a character weakened by rewriting and Thurman who continues her performance from last year's number one turkey Batman and Robin.
The film will probably outrage you if it doesn't just bore you, because with the evident talent involved and even the one or two moments which work (the giant teddy bears), this is a vapid and empty spectacle has been made with more concern for style than anything remotely resembling entertainment value and seems a positively malevolent waste of everyone's time.