Gudrun and Ursula are sisters in England in the early twentieth century. Ursula is in love with the free-thinking Rupert, whilst Gudrun is attracted to the wealthy Gerald. Will the two couples be happy together ?
Ken Russell passed away recently. He was a great filmmaker and this, his second feature, illustrates his incredible visual talent. He breaks away from the dull traditional reverence when adapting literary classics, instead ramping up every scene as much as possible with pictorial flair, music, movement, sexual tension, shouting - anything to make the film as dramatic as possible. He succeeds with some fine moments. like the scene where Gudrun bewitches the Highland Cattle, or the infamous nude wrestling match between Bates and Reed, but there is a fundamental problem and that's the novel by D.H. Lawrence, the plot of which is in my view quite staggeringly dull. Rupert wants a bisexual lifestyle, Gudrun doesn't want to be tied down to anyone, Gerald wants a wife to dominate and Ursula just wants to be loved. They all pontificate endlessly about how they feel, which is about the least cinematic a story can get, so it's amazing that despite this Russell manages to make his film so arresting, filled with evocative shots of the beautiful countryside. Like The Unbearable Lightness Of Being and Eyes Wide Shut, this is a interesting movie about sexual morality based on very dull source material, but is well worth seeing for its visual flair alone. Nicely shot by Billy Williams in rural northern England and at Zermatt in Switzerland (that majestic mountain is the famous Matterhorn), and written and produced by noted playwright and gay rights activist Larry Kramer. Trivia - Jackson plays a scene where she pretends to be Antonina Miliukova (Tchaikovsky's wife), whom she played in Russell's subsequent The Music Lovers, and went on to appear as her character's mother in Russell's 1989 film The Rainbow.
Ken Russell passed away recently. He was a great filmmaker and this, his second feature, illustrates his incredible visual talent. He breaks away from the dull traditional reverence when adapting literary classics, instead ramping up every scene as much as possible with pictorial flair, music, movement, sexual tension, shouting - anything to make the film as dramatic as possible. He succeeds with some fine moments. like the scene where Gudrun bewitches the Highland Cattle, or the infamous nude wrestling match between Bates and Reed, but there is a fundamental problem and that's the novel by D.H. Lawrence, the plot of which is in my view quite staggeringly dull. Rupert wants a bisexual lifestyle, Gudrun doesn't want to be tied down to anyone, Gerald wants a wife to dominate and Ursula just wants to be loved. They all pontificate endlessly about how they feel, which is about the least cinematic a story can get, so it's amazing that despite this Russell manages to make his film so arresting, filled with evocative shots of the beautiful countryside. Like The Unbearable Lightness Of Being and Eyes Wide Shut, this is a interesting movie about sexual morality based on very dull source material, but is well worth seeing for its visual flair alone. Nicely shot by Billy Williams in rural northern England and at Zermatt in Switzerland (that majestic mountain is the famous Matterhorn), and written and produced by noted playwright and gay rights activist Larry Kramer. Trivia - Jackson plays a scene where she pretends to be Antonina Miliukova (Tchaikovsky's wife), whom she played in Russell's subsequent The Music Lovers, and went on to appear as her character's mother in Russell's 1989 film The Rainbow.