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March 29, 2024, 02:32:34 AM

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Lady Macbeth

Started by Talulah, really!, May 07, 2017, 12:43:44 PM

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Talulah, really!

Best film I've seen so far this year, a small, stark masterwork.

It's based on a 19th century Russian novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District transported in place to the North East of England but staying in the 19th century. It's about a woman trapped in a stifling,loveless marriage awakening to her own desires and the consequences as she tries to break free.

Shot on a small budget and filmed quickly, it makes full use of what could be limitations and turns them into assets. The film only alternates between the cold, sparse shuttered interiors of the house she is trapped in, usually shot straight on in longish takes to give it the feel of watching a stage play contrasted with occasional outside locations of nearby fields and a forest. (Tellingly we never see the front of the house just the stables and courtyard, it all heightens the cut off isolation she feels, subtly engaging the audience sympathy for her).

At its heart it is driven by a brilliant performance by Florence Pugh who is at turns tragic, malign, desperate and surprisingly often very tart and funny, the films finding some rich spots of dark irony in her situation and the audience at the showing laughed more often than at many film comedies I've attended over the years (again it helps win the audience sympathy for her).

The script by Alice Birch is intelligent, continually showing the audience what happens rather than have characters explain the story, you are left to make your own judgements as the film proceeds and events unfolds. Your can also draw your own conclusions about the issues of class and race that the film raises yet does not address through a 21st century perspective directly.

The sound design is excellent emphasising every step on the wooden floors balefully echoing in the silent voids of this empty house, (there is next to no musical soundtrack - a few ominous chords act as scene changes being about it).

Most of the reviews mention Michael Haneke as a reference point and there are a few moments especially the more violent ones where the unflinching steadiness of his films and his willingness to let time play out as it would in real life come to mind.

It was one of those films that was met with awed silence at the end and not the usual rush for the exits.

It falls in with some other recent period films that show the past isn't a Jane Austen sunlight world but downright bloody awful, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights might serve best (though the acting in this film is far better, as well as Florence Pugh, Naomi Ackie is excellent as the servant who witnesses all the action, Christopher Fairbank plays an absolutely horrible cunt of a man as well as he always does and the splendidly named Cosmo Jarvis is fine in his part as well as bearing a resemblance to a young Tom Hardy which is never a bad thing) there's also Terence Davies Sunset Song and Sally Wainwright's recent TV film on the Bronte sisters.

All in all, can't praise it highly enough.

Howj Begg

My immediate response to the change in the culture/location is :(

It's a big part of why I like the Shostakovitch opera. The Russian-ness is intoxicating.

I have seen the poster for this on the tube loads, but specifically at a station where you have to turn a sharp comer, and then you are suddenly confronted  by he poster for this. It's a bit of a shocker!

Talulah, really!

It is a different beast from the opera, the ending is changed into something that feels psychologically truer to the world the film presents.

As to the change in location, think it works very well by staying true to the inner spirit of the work rather than the surface details. In recent weeks have seen the dully dutiful illustrating scenes from the book adaptation of Julian Barnes A Sense of an Ending[nb]Oddly enough that and Lady Macbeth both have scenes where a man is clearly wanking himself off.[/nb] and the totally transported in time and place of The Handmaiden which is an adaptation of Sarah Water's Victorian England set Fingersmith. The latter is both to me a more faithful adaptation as well as a much better film whereas the former has to spell things out that the novel leaves ambiguous and thus loses the effect of the ending and relies on the central character telling us in a voiceover that which the novel lets us discover for ourself.

The film whilst placing the story in a very specific North East England setting whittles the story down to the rudiments of a Greek tragedy, it is both particular and universal at once.

garbed_attic

Just seen this. Nasty, but very well composed.

This exchange because Florence Pugh and interviewer Nick Chen manages to communicate what is troublesome about the film very neatly:

QuoteGiven the fate and casting of certain characters in the story, is this a film about white feminism?

Florence Pugh: No, I don't think it's about white feminism, because they opened casting to whoever. They didn't specifically want one person to be white, or anything like that. It just happened that I was right for Katherine, and Golda Rosheuvel was right for Agnes. I do think it's a film about female force. Someone said she's a femme fatale. Well, I think she's better than that. She's not a femme fatale; she does it herself, and she ropes in a lot of men in the process. I think it's about female empowerment and her struggles to keep the reins in line. Definitely, there's a force behind her, and that's why people are so excited about her.

Oh, so was the script not altered after the actors were picked? Because I found it hard not to think about the film's racial politics.

Florence Pugh: What it meant was, they didn't factor it in the script. It's not like Alice (Birch, the screenwriter) wrote "this maid has to be black". These were just characters. You fill in the blanks. I think that's a very clever way of writing a script. There weren't racial boundaries. You fill the parts with whoever you think fits, and what a wonderful way to cast a film in the 21st century. Why aren't we doing that already?

zomgmouse

Realised I typed up this reply on Friday and never posted it:

Just saw this today*, thought it was pretty good. If I had karma I'd give some to you, Tallulah, for those observations, especially about the setting.
I wasn't too much of a fan of how excessive some of the handheld stuff was even though it had a clear job of separating the severe world of the patriarchy from the warmer personal world of Catherine, but it got much calmer very quickly so that was okay. In fact in general the gender dynamics did kind of err on the obvious side, though they were really interesting.
Other than that I rather enjoyed this. Great atmospherisation (that's a word now) and acting. Also the cinematographer is from Melbourne! #represent
Interesting choice to alter the ending from the source text. I'm not sure which works best; the original really hammers home her undoing at the hands of her blind lust and shows up Sebastian (Sergei) to be an ambitious, money-grabbing womaniser. But here it kind of punishes her much more subtly, leaving her totally abandoned and alone and about to face rearing a child with no help, which was interesting.

*at time of writing

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Lady MacBeth


...in Space!
...on the Estate!
...in ClubLand
...Pet Detective
...staff Nurse of the NHS!
...and Dunston Check In
...Live In Rhyl
...Goes Bananas
...XXX As you've never seen her before
...Lubed and Ready For Cock
...Used As A Pissmop and Kicked Down A Flight of Stairs
...Milkman Auditor
... Administrative Assistant
...eats Ginsters Pasties
...sings the Smiths
...Live for the Troops