The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 3: From Sark to the Finish (2003)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Peter Greenaway

Writer:

Peter Greenaway (writer)

Genre:

Adventure | Biography | Drama | Romance | Thriller | War

Plot Keywords:

Surrealism | Sequel | Third Part | Husband Wife Relationship | Male Female Relationship

Cast

Roger Rees	...	Tulse Luper
Stephen Billington	...	Tulse Luper
Jordi Mollà	...	Hypolite / Gaudí
Ana Torrent	...	Charlotte des Arbres
Ornella Muti	...	Mathilde Figura
Iori Hugues	...	Martino Knockavelli
Anna Galiena	...	Madame Plens
Itziar Castro	...	Frances Cotumely
Esther Gómez	...	Lesley Cotumely
Flora Álvarez	...	Jeanne Cotumely
Joan-Francesc Ainaud	...	Doctor Hospital
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Giovanni Capalbo	...	Heinkel
Valentina Cervi	...	Cissie Colpitts
Roberto Citran	...	Raoul Wallenberg
Renata Litvinova	...	Constance Bulitsky
Drew Mulligan	...	Martino Knockavelli
Kristina Orbakayte		(as Kristina Orbakaite)
Jochum ten Haaf	...	Bouillard

Also Known As:

Las maletas de Tulse Luper, 3a parte: De Vaux al final (Spain)

Runtime:

Canada:105 min (Toronto International Film Festival) | Hong Kong:120 min (Hong Kong International Film Festival)

Country:

UK | Spain | Luxembourg | Netherlands | Germany

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Company:

Delux Productions

Movie Connections:

Features Intervals (1969)

How NOT to make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Apart from the (admittedly effective) twist ending, this last film of the Tulse Luper Suitcases trilogy is literally mind-numbing. Having watched the entire trilogy of films in a cinema over three days:

- The Moab Story is brilliant (especially the extended Episode 3: Antwerpen);

- Vaux To The Sea has some great parts, but is ultimately disappointing (for example, THERE IS NO SEA);

- From Sark To Finish... is clearly where the production ran out of money, and interest... and with the remaining 9 (of 16) "episodes" needing to be squeezed into two hours with not much money left... uh oh...

What's MOST wrong with From Sark To Finish?

J.J. Feild (the recognizable face of the trilogy) DOES NOT APPEAR IN THIS FILM AT ALL; he is covertly replaced by a new, blander Luper, in addition to the "old Luper" familiar from the previous film.

Yorick Wageningen (as the trilogy's main antagonist, Lephrenic) DOES NOT APPEAR EITHER except in still-photos and voice-over; instead, his (climactic) scenes are DESCRIBED by a narrator over "second unit" footage of Rome landmarks WITHOUT ANY OF THE ACTORS on screen. It's like those missing scenes from Fritz Lang's Metropolis being replaced with title-cards to fill in the narrative gaps... except THIS film's "missing scenes" are (I assume charitably) the GOOD scenes: the scenes with dramatic confrontations, vibrant scenography, and some semblance of excitement to them.

Instead of Luper being caught up in the madness of the 20th century, in this final film he mostly sits around in a series of soundstage dungeons doing NOTHING while voice-over narrators tell fun (but mostly irrelevant) fairy tales, intentionally gruesome jokes are made about the Holocaust, and a surprisingly small number of naked women dance around, just because. The last full hour of this film consists almost entirely of C.G. diagrams and/or the aforementioned "dungeon". It's like Prospero's Books with chronic fatigue and no money.

Greenaway is a cinematic genius, and I believe he started this Trilogy the right way (The Moab Story, and the Antwerp episode in particular, is TRULY SPECTACULAR), but surely... there had to be some alternative to this perfunctory reach-around of a finale. Tedious and disheartening.

Talk about ending with a whimper.