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Reviews
Sanditon: Episode #1.1 (2019)
If a girl cannot find adventure at home . . .
Delightful beginning episode: a carriage overturns and falls off the road, setting up the story ...who but Andrew Davies would have this accident interrupt the heroine's rabbit hunting? No Elmer Fudd, she! Readers of Austen and fans of other film adaptations will know that "falling" is a motif which happens typically well into a story. What does it mean? Something to ponder. Thus Charlotte is spirited off to a seaside resort for some adventure. Though Charlotte is at first mistaken for a "new maid" by Sidney, her future love-interest, all goes well...not! Lots of plot twists and dashed expectations, not your purist Austen but irresistible nevertheless. Recommend purchasing PBS passport so you can binge all 8 episodes, because you will not appreciate being on pins and needles from week to week! (ps--posted a version of this review at first by mistake on the Episode 7 page; #7 is my favorite for the lovely, intense rowing scene with Sidney & Charlotte notwithstanding the intrusion of villainous Mrs Campion who serves as a rock in the road to true Austenesque love)
Sanditon: Episode #1.8 (2019)
Stuck in a pagoda with Tricia Toyoda...oops, I mean HELP! WHAT JUST HAPPENED??
Hello??? What on earth were the script-writers thinking? This last episode is full of cliff-hangers and enormous disappointments. Yet it's a rich episode with so much dramatic twisting of plot, tension, alarm, uncertainty, another fabulous dancing scene, yet more brilliant music by Rachel Barrett, a sweet balcony scene, and a lovely resolution of the Babbington-Esther relationship (at least there is one wedding in the series **sniff**). The driving trope of the story of course is the union of souls between hero/heroine-Charlotte/Sidney and following the revealing path that brings them together. Though Andrew Davies, the script writer, packed this fragmented Austen-derived story with so many new and racy plot elements, a range of new characters, sexy bits, and the like, he keeps the relationship-driven plot central...in Austen, as the morally deficient characters are exposed eventually for what they are, they dissolve and disappear, while the heroes and heroines emerge and come together in deep attachment. But in Episode 8, Sidney proves to remain the conundrum he was pronounced to be by Charlotte in an earlier episode. He's a bit "improved" and more worthy of Charlotte (or is he?), but the ending leaves the couple tragically torn apart, despite zillions of hints about how they may be brought back together. It is absolutely heartbreaking, infuriating! It screams out for a SEASON 2! There are way too many loose threads, too many unresolved plot lines. Austen would not do this to us! Intensely frustrating, simply unacceptable, so please PBS, relieve our suffering and consent to do something about a Season 2!
Sanditon: Episode #1.4 (2019)
Never offer pickled tongue to a kissing couple
A complicated sibling relationship threatens to thwart Lord Babington, a suitor who is madly in love with Esther, the sister of the sibling couple. Edward, the brother, as an impoverished baronet, had just as many constraints on choosing a marriage partner as did most women of the era. Hence we observe the deepening of the struggles among 3 desperate potential heirs, all dependent on their rich aunt. Exterior shots of the stagnant, leaf-strewn pond on the Denham siblings' property seems to speak of the stagnant nature of their relationship, especially with the contrast of the wild cliffs and the sea so close. A lovely clandestine meeting between Miss Lambe & her Otis, facilitated unwittingly by Charlotte leads to a rip-roaring shouting match between her and Sidney, only intensifying the sparks that fly whenever they manage to get in proximity of one another!
Sanditon: Episode #1.6 (2019)
The plot thickens, so does the London Fog!
Lots of action and conflict in this episode. Very grand dancing scene in which heroine & hero begin to soften toward one another and reach some mutual understanding, though hard-won. Wonderful thread about a young black woman, Crystal Clarke in the role is fabulous, a wonderful actress-- ward of our story's hero, and her romance with a flawed abolitionist. Though writer Davies takes many liberties with Austen, maybe more than usual because of the fragmented nature of the original text, he preserves the essential Austenesque emphasis on relationship and character. Music is absolutely brilliant, by Ruth Barrett. With 2 episodes to go, one begins to feel anxious about how all the narrative threads will be resolved.
Sanditon: Episode #1.7 (2019)
Binge-worthy, can't watch just one!
What fun! Lots of action in first episode: a carriage overturning sets up the story, ...who but Andrew Davies would have this accident interrupt the heroine's rabbit hunting? No Elmer Fudd, she! Though she is at first mistaken for a "new maid" by her future love-interest, all goes well...not! Lots of plot twists and dashed expectations, not your purist Austen but irresistible nevertheless. Recommend purchasing PBS passport so you can binge all 8 episodes, because you will not appreciate being on pins and needles from week to week! (ps--meant to post this review in the Episode 1 page..Episode 7 is my favorite for the lovely rowing scene with Sidney & Charlotte notwithstanding the intrusion of villainous Mrs Campion who serves as a rock in the road to true Austenesque love)
Kusama: Infinity (2018)
Timely, revealing portrait of one of the most brilliant visual artists of our time
Heather Lenz directs an important, timely, and fascinating film about the now 89-year-old artist, Yayoi Kusama. A Japanese who in the early 1960s escaped her stifling family to begin her career in New York, where she innovated--as Lenz's film reveals--only to have her concepts and techniques stolen by the likes of Warhol, Oldenburg, et al. These men soon eclipsed her celebrity, and at her expense. Very critical correction of the historical record. Lenz also locates the origins of some of Kusama's visual motifs in childhood trauma, which had resulted in hallucinations and then obsession with hallucinated shapes and patterns. Kusama herself acknowledges as much and credits art-making with her survival. Her mirrored "infinity room" installations, giant polka-dotted pumpkins, and huge paintings covered obsessively with her personal iconography, now draw huge crowds at museums and galleries all over the world. Heather Lenz has not only drawn a powerful portrait of an artist whose late fame has intense cultural significance, but has also set a humanistic standard for the accounting of biographical details and, critically, for setting the historical record straight.