This exquisitely rendered film adaptation of Margaret Duras' international best-seller weaves a bittersweet story about the most unlikely love affair.
An extraordinary love story unfolds in Saigon, in French colonial Vietnam, in the late twenties. The two protagonists whose budding liaison we follow throughout this melancholic French film are polar opposites. Cultural prejudice, the age disparity, class difference, racial divide, dysfunctional family, a pre-arranged marriage, a young girl in a man's fedora, all stand in the way of the most of elusive of humane pursuits - love. This is a love affair par excellence, about love of a very special sort; the only kind of love that is forever etched in the lovebirds hearts - the love that leaves both lovers broken-hearted.
Veteran filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud (Quest For Fire, In The Name Of The Rose, The Bear) gives the stellar screen adaptation of the book - by his frequent collaborator, screen writer Gerard Brach - a de luxe treatment. He seamlessly translates the superb screen play to the silver screen in the most effective fashion; much like celebrated rendering of Mario Puzzo's 'Godfather' by another cinematic master - Francis Ford Copolla. Both directors have miraculously elevated source materials, pop culture international literary phenomenons, into cinema classics. This memorable feature is a crowning achievement in the career of an acclaimed artist with imposing international stature.
That this flawless cinematic gem has not gotten prominence it deserves on our shores, is a lamentable testament to our puritanical society and the crudeness of populist taste. Irrespectful of high cinematic achievements the two sub-genres will always encounter sharp scissors of our merciless and hypocritical moral and cultural guardians. Our censors will inevitable relish at any 'sexually explicit', controversial love story that is left of mainstream (coffee-table pornography, in our righteous film critic's parlance) and, for different reasons altogether, at a serious, probing, insightful and provocative political picture. These are exactly the two film arenas in which foreign filmmakers are in a league way above the common and the mediocre, the two American leagues tackling the respective sub-genres.
There is a seduction scene at the beginning of this luminous picture that is as sophisticated and erotic as anything written by Stendhal; right from a classical French novel. This extremely rich, masterfully shot, explosively potent scene brimming with subtle eroticism, is the meeting, in the back seat of a car, of suppressed mature desire and the sweet dread of carnal awakening of a nymphet.
There are numerous scenes of striking beauty, poetically realized, throughout the movie, but one stands out. When the young girl, her sexuality fully awakened, approaches her lover's car and purses her lips on the window.
The precise, top-notch editing serves the picture well, always adding to the story's narrative drive or allowing for a moment of contemplation. The most exciting scenes end at just the right moments, when the viewers anticipation is at its highest. They are always followed by a lingering or tracking shot of magnificent, lyrical beauty.
Seldom is a close-up as eloquent as it is in the hands of Robert Fraisse, the film's Oscar nominated cinematographer (he had a misfortune of running against Robert Redford's 'A River Runs Through It). We learn more about the character of The Young Girl from a single protracted close-up of the girl, than we learn about characters in many other movies during the whole first act. By the time his camera reaches her old cabaret shoes, slowly lingering down her pigtail, pausing on a ribbon, the essence of her innocent persona is half-revealed. The whole film is spectacularly shot; a picturesque collage of never-ending, breath-taking images, elegantly composed and framed with a finesse full of visual majesty.
The film main conflict surprisingly stems from the young girl's a priori approach to the blossoming relationship. Her determination to keep the affair strictly sexual could have come out contrived were it not for the grim circumstances of her family life that had her mature before her time. Not inherent to her age group, the determination was way ahead of her times. It would take decades for such attitude to approach mainstream with female liberation movement which emerged in the late sixties.
On the opposite end, her rich Chinese lover is bound to marry according to his father's wishes and to the tradition of arranged marriages. Born into riches, with no profession nor any discernible talents, in his own words he is nobody without his money. Seemingly a perfect set-up for a guilty-free sexual liaison gets complicated when the Chinese bon vivant falls in love with the young girl and meets the torments of unrequited love.
'The Lover' is a cinematic gem of rare color and unforgettable spark; the love story of singular beauty and distinct resonance.
An extraordinary love story unfolds in Saigon, in French colonial Vietnam, in the late twenties. The two protagonists whose budding liaison we follow throughout this melancholic French film are polar opposites. Cultural prejudice, the age disparity, class difference, racial divide, dysfunctional family, a pre-arranged marriage, a young girl in a man's fedora, all stand in the way of the most of elusive of humane pursuits - love. This is a love affair par excellence, about love of a very special sort; the only kind of love that is forever etched in the lovebirds hearts - the love that leaves both lovers broken-hearted.
Veteran filmmaker Jean-Jacques Annaud (Quest For Fire, In The Name Of The Rose, The Bear) gives the stellar screen adaptation of the book - by his frequent collaborator, screen writer Gerard Brach - a de luxe treatment. He seamlessly translates the superb screen play to the silver screen in the most effective fashion; much like celebrated rendering of Mario Puzzo's 'Godfather' by another cinematic master - Francis Ford Copolla. Both directors have miraculously elevated source materials, pop culture international literary phenomenons, into cinema classics. This memorable feature is a crowning achievement in the career of an acclaimed artist with imposing international stature.
That this flawless cinematic gem has not gotten prominence it deserves on our shores, is a lamentable testament to our puritanical society and the crudeness of populist taste. Irrespectful of high cinematic achievements the two sub-genres will always encounter sharp scissors of our merciless and hypocritical moral and cultural guardians. Our censors will inevitable relish at any 'sexually explicit', controversial love story that is left of mainstream (coffee-table pornography, in our righteous film critic's parlance) and, for different reasons altogether, at a serious, probing, insightful and provocative political picture. These are exactly the two film arenas in which foreign filmmakers are in a league way above the common and the mediocre, the two American leagues tackling the respective sub-genres.
There is a seduction scene at the beginning of this luminous picture that is as sophisticated and erotic as anything written by Stendhal; right from a classical French novel. This extremely rich, masterfully shot, explosively potent scene brimming with subtle eroticism, is the meeting, in the back seat of a car, of suppressed mature desire and the sweet dread of carnal awakening of a nymphet.
There are numerous scenes of striking beauty, poetically realized, throughout the movie, but one stands out. When the young girl, her sexuality fully awakened, approaches her lover's car and purses her lips on the window.
The precise, top-notch editing serves the picture well, always adding to the story's narrative drive or allowing for a moment of contemplation. The most exciting scenes end at just the right moments, when the viewers anticipation is at its highest. They are always followed by a lingering or tracking shot of magnificent, lyrical beauty.
Seldom is a close-up as eloquent as it is in the hands of Robert Fraisse, the film's Oscar nominated cinematographer (he had a misfortune of running against Robert Redford's 'A River Runs Through It). We learn more about the character of The Young Girl from a single protracted close-up of the girl, than we learn about characters in many other movies during the whole first act. By the time his camera reaches her old cabaret shoes, slowly lingering down her pigtail, pausing on a ribbon, the essence of her innocent persona is half-revealed. The whole film is spectacularly shot; a picturesque collage of never-ending, breath-taking images, elegantly composed and framed with a finesse full of visual majesty.
The film main conflict surprisingly stems from the young girl's a priori approach to the blossoming relationship. Her determination to keep the affair strictly sexual could have come out contrived were it not for the grim circumstances of her family life that had her mature before her time. Not inherent to her age group, the determination was way ahead of her times. It would take decades for such attitude to approach mainstream with female liberation movement which emerged in the late sixties.
On the opposite end, her rich Chinese lover is bound to marry according to his father's wishes and to the tradition of arranged marriages. Born into riches, with no profession nor any discernible talents, in his own words he is nobody without his money. Seemingly a perfect set-up for a guilty-free sexual liaison gets complicated when the Chinese bon vivant falls in love with the young girl and meets the torments of unrequited love.
'The Lover' is a cinematic gem of rare color and unforgettable spark; the love story of singular beauty and distinct resonance.