At the
Movies Looks back: Films examine honor, restraint and memory
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
The Widow of St. Pierre is a
high-minded French throwback to the best old-time historical melodramas.
Director Patrice Lacontes new movie is built around a star (Juliette
Binoche), takes place in 1849 on the French-governed island of St. Pierre (not
far from Canadas Atlantic coast), and is stirringly acted by its three
principals: Madame La (Binoche); her husband, the Captain (Daniel Auteuil); and
Neel Auguste, a fisherman (Emil Kusturica, the Yugoslav film director, making
his acting debut). Something serious is at stake: Will the death sentence be
carried out on Neel for his drunken participation in a senseless murder?
The widow of the title is a slang word for the
guillotine, which Frances Second Republic has decreed must be used in the
execution of condemned criminals. The isolated island of St. Pierre does not
have such an instrument, but its small-minded governor and hair-splitting judge
feel the law must be obeyed, and apply to Paris to have one sent as soon as
possible.
Neel is led in shackles to a cell in the Captains garrison,
triggering a powerful sense of sympathy in the aristocratic Madame La. Although
the Captain vows he will carry out whatever orders he receives regarding his
prisoner, he sees no need to impose harsh treatment. He even allows his wife to
make Neel a kind of protégé. He helps her create a garden and
accompanies her to Dog Island, where she brings charity to poor widows and
children.
Leconte frames some striking shots of Madame La and Neel walking
by the sea and dragging a sled across the snow. Though Madame Las
feelings for Neel suggest something more than pity, no indiscretion takes
place. Tongues start wagging on St. Pierre, but the movie underlines the
passionate nature of the relationship between the Captain and his wife. When
there is a hint of levity directed at Madame La by the islands
small-minded rulers, one glance from the Captain squelches the affront to his
honor.
If Binoche shows a far greater range as Madame La than in the
popular but syrupy Chocolat, Auteuil is even more impressive as the
epitome of military honor. Deeply in love with his wife, he is ready to run any
risk in support of her independent convictions.
Meanwhile Neel has won over the poor inhabitants of the island by
heroically braking a runaway wagon, repairing a widows roof and showing
himself a model prisoner. When the news comes that a guillotine has been
dispatched from Martinique, the populace is indignant. A public uprising erupts
when Neels execution appears imminent; only the Captains sense of
command manages to calm the enraged islanders.
The climax is stirring, with significant variations from the usual
Hollywood formula. The Widow of St. Pierre is traditional
moviemaking at its best, overwhelming us with images of the high-minded
nobility of its three main characters.
By contrast, In the Mood for
Love is less interested in narrative than in carefully framed shots of its
two main characters passing each other on the stairs or staring wistfully from
a distance. Taiwanese director Wong Kar-wei gets a maximum emotional charge out
of the minimal story of a Hong Kong couple, secretary Su Li-zhen (Maggie
Cheung) and journalist Chow Mowan (Tony Leung), who live in adjoining
apartments in 1962 and gradually discover that their spouses are having an
affair. Wong heightens the situation by never showing us Lis husband or
Chows wife directly: We see a back and a hairdo and hear a line of banal
dialogue, but there is always some obstruction making a full view of them
impossible. The pace is deliberately slow; in their early encounters, Li and
Chow merely acknowledge each other politely.
The songs of Nat King Cole provide an appropriate background for
the movie, which is about deep longing, elegance and restraint.
Lets not be like them, Li tells her new friend. Wong Kar-Wei
simply sets his camera where it can observe from behind as the young woman
walks gracefully downstairs, or points it at a street corner for brief moments
when the couple are together outside. The director wants to seduce us as we
observe Li wearing one beautiful silk dress after another; he then humorously
deflates the effect by having the proprietor of the apartment house comment,
Shes certainly all decked out just to go buy some
noodles.
Trained by todays films, contemporary audiences are
initially apt to be impatient for Li and Chow to go to bed together, but by
situating his story in the Hong Kong of the 60s, the director emphasizes
the taboo nature of adultery.
Neither Li nor Chow can stop reassessing the meaning of the
situation that has brought them together. In several moving scenes, they
imagine the meeting of their spouses, invent their first declarations of love
and even play out the sequence in which Li asks her husband to admit that he
has a mistress.
Wong is not preaching or trying to prove anything. He is merely
reflecting on cinema as the art of repetition in the service of a better
understanding of oneself and others. In this beautiful film he penetrates the
complex veil of an impossible love.
Christopher Nolans
Memento at first seems an even greater departure from conventional
moviemaking, but by the end we may be asking if its any more than an
ingenious trick. Based on a short story by the directors brother
Jonathan, its a film noir in which time runs backward. Leonard Shelby
(Guy Pearce) wakes up in a strange bed beside a complete stranger. He is
looking to avenge the rape and death of his wife but has no short-term memory
due to a blow on his head. Since he realizes that he doesnt remember
things, he is constantly taking Polaroid pictures of people hes with and
having facts tattooed all over his body.
Some people will take Memento as a metaphysical
puzzle: How can we know anything? Its the kind of movie that tempts one
to say, Youve got to see it a second time, but the truth is I
wouldnt be able to follow it even then.
Pearce is good in his confusion, laced with overconfidence and
occasional lightheartedness. Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), a dead man in the opening
scene, is frightening in the way he keeps turning up, brimming with good humor.
Natalie (Carrie-Ann Moss), a bartender who asks Leonard to help her, shows the
most tolerance for his confusion. Mixed into the backward flow of
Leonards story is another, a case he investigated as an insurance company
investigator, presented in black and white, about a man with a similar memory
problem.
Nolan keeps Memento going with the pace of a good
thriller, and there are some legitimate laughs that grow out of Leonards
confusion. But it was hard to care that much about any of the characters or
what the answers to the movies questions really were. By the time I got
home I had completely forgotten all about it, which may mean someone should
make a film about my memory.
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie reviewer. His
e-mail address is SCunn24219@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, March 30,
2001
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