The Cherry Orchard (1999)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Mihalis Kakogiannis

Writers:

Anton Chekhov (play)
Mihalis Kakogiannis (screenplay)

Release Date:

12 January 2000 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Madame Ranevskaya (Rampling) is a spoiled aging aristocratic lady, who returns from a trip to Paris...

Plot Keywords:

Foreign Language Adaptation | Based On Play | Independent Film

Awards:

4 wins

Cast

Charlotte Rampling	...	Ranyevskaya
Alan Bates	...	Gayev
Katrin Cartlidge	...	Varya
Owen Teale	...	Lopahin
Tushka Bergen	...	Anya
Xander Berkeley	...	Yepihodov
Gerard Butler	...	Yasha (as Gerald Butler)
Andrew Howard	...	Trofimov
Melanie Lynskey	...	Dunyasha
Ian McNeice	...	Pishchik
Frances de la Tour	...	Charlotte Ivanovna
Michael Gough	...	Feers
Simeon Victorov	...	Doridanov
Itzhak Finzi	...	Stranger
Ivan Pangelov	...	French priest

Also Known As:

La cerisaie (France)
O vyssinokipos (Greece)
The Cherry Orchard (UK)

Runtime:

141 min

Country:

Greece | Cyprus | France

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Certification:

USA:Not Rated (video rating) | Australia:PG | France:U | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Bulgaria

Company:

Melanda Film Productions

Trivia:

Glenn Close was the second choice for Ranyevskaya. After Helen Mirren withdrew she was called to replace her. She was busy with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999) at the time, so she refused the part at the last minute. Charlotte Rampling eventually got it.

Movie Connections:

Version of "Play of the Week: The Cherry Orchard (#1.12)" (1959)

Soundtrack:

String Quartet No 3

These cherries have no juice

I came to this production of Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard" with high hopes. It looked like a fine cast, and under the direction of Michael Cacoyannis, I felt certain they would shine. Alas. my hopes were dashed. The low-key approach Cacoyannis takes (and one assumes that he also directed his actors to do it) drains the movie of almost all of its human energy. And that's only one of the deadly choices he makes.

Instead of opening where the play does with the family and some hangers-on await the arrival of Charlotte Rampling home after five years abroad, the director, in a unnecessary bid to open up the play), opens in Paris, which is where she is coming home from. Thus, her anxiously awaited homecoming devolves from a major event in the first act to a throw-away scene. Worse, because dialogue from her arrival home is transposed into the Paris scene makes her seem already defeated instead of letting us see how the situations that cause her defeat develop. What this does is to put a heinous crimp into the development of Rampling's character. The prologue seriously compromises the balance of the play.

Worse, in making this film, Cacoyannis seems to have his phaser stuck on "elegiac." Ah yes, we're witnessing the decline of a awy of life, we are saying goodbye to people who will soon be swept out of history by the Russian revolution. These characters can't know that. Even Chekov could not really have known. Elegiac music by Tchaikovsky oozes out of every poor, making every sticky. This decision allows Cacoyannis (who has already thrown out a third to a quarter of the original play) to ignore the rich vein of social humor that runs direcly beneath the surface of Checkov's script. There's a lot of fun to be had with "The Cherry Orchard" with a director who knows where to find it also knows how to use it. But this is a deadly boring affair.

Cacoyannis uses every opportunity to get his cast out of doors, so it's ironic that when something really important has to be said, he groups his actors together in stagy poses and then leaves them there for the duration of a scene. And when this happens (all too frequently), the director has his actors declaim as if they were addressing the back rows in a live theater.

There is no human energy in this production. And human energy is the only thing that can possibly transform a play that is virtually all talk and no (onstage) action. Whether it's the fault of the director or of his actors, this movie has absolutely no juice.