Reviews

This is a film that was shown in London in 2003, as far as I know, only at Panton Street Odeon, which shows interesting films.

I only went to see it because a major paper had given it a positive, if not rave review as a debut feature. I think it's a solid film in the psychological horror mode, which is good for a debut. It has no real innovations or surprises except that it is crafted well.

What does stand out is some of the incidental humour, like in a scene where a car crashes, and yet when the man wearily gets out he finds somehow it is perfectly parked between two cars. The friend I went to see it with particularly appreciated this and still mentions it today.

Still, it is a film with scenes I can still vividly remember, so it must have something going for it.

Also, the director has a very exotic, Arab(?) name, and it is always good to see a film made by a director with such a name that is more David Cronenberg than about Palestine or something along that line.

This film is so so so ridiculous, and apparently it was written by Martin Amis (some might argue no wonder it is bad). Though, it does have kitsch appeal, what with Harvey Keitel as a very English madman and Kirk, looking like Fawcett's granddad, slapping an amazingly rousing, luscious Fawcett who you could just eat up she is so pink and fleshy (I better not go on to save censorship) on the butt in a shower scene. I just can't think of this working originally, except maybe if they had turned the sex up and made it erotic sci-fi thriller. Abit like Demon Seed, where Julie Christie is just defyingly sexy, but the director (that mad English name I can't...Donald Cammell, got it, you see?) doesn't make enough of it.

Unlike the other commentator, I am not interested in lightships. I didn't even know what a lightship was until I saw this film. However, I am interested by this film. I saw it on BBC 1, a few months ago, in their late night film slot, a slot usually reserved for B Movies.

The Lightship could easily be a B movie, only it stars two great actors, Robert Duval and Klaus Maria Brandauer, putting the actors in what could easily be a conventional thriller scenario. Brandauer is the captain of a lightship, thus a man of law, thus a good guy. Duvall is a mysterious, shady figure who seeks refuge from the sea, possibly a man on the run, thus a bad guy. So a battle between good and bad, order and disorder, is played out.

This actually happens in the film. Not a great film, or even a very good one. But odd. About as odd as finding your grandmother is into S&M. For both men become fascinated with one another, and their respective occupations. To illustrate how odd this is, there is a scene where Brandauer finds Duvall taking a bath in his bedroom. Instead of being taken aback, Brandauer puts his hand in the water, playfully, like a lover, and they talk. They talk a lot in the film. Moreover, the film set a few years after World War II, yet Brandauer is playing a German (in charge of an American boat)and Duvall is a real sweet, gent of a southern lawyer, who is also a dangerous, psychopathic criminal, in charge of a couple of hoodlums.

All this weirdness is not that surprising, after all the director is that Polish guy with the weird (if you're not Polish) name, Skowlimowski, who has directed some strange films in his time.

I didn't like the fact the narration or the eighties-ness about it (ie soundtrack). But the kid was OK.

A basic marital morality tale, enthused with Stroheim's lust for self-loathing. He plays an over-sexed, effete, lizard of a Prussian Officer, named Von Steubens, who zealously seeks to dishonour the wife of an American doctor holidaying in an Alpine retreat.

Interestingly, Stroheim is said to have virtually stalked Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal, in order to get his story, The Pinnacle, made into what would become Blind Husbands. Not the least hint or sign, then, of the crazy, obsessive auteur, a part that Stroheim would pioneer! As a director, Stroheim does have a wonderful visual eye (scenes of men climbing mountains etc.). There are also some very inventive shots, such as when the wife is looking at her practically impotent husband, the doctor, sleeping in bed, via a mirror, and then sees a young couple at the lodge in place of him, completely in love, before going back to the snoring doctor.

Moreover, the English actor who would go on to play McTeague in Stroheim's much greater, later, work: Greed, here plays a mountain guide. He is a symbol of the people of the mountains, strong, pious and devout, a complete opposite to Von Steubens' decadent Officer, who uses his cultural refinement only to guarantee his baser purposes, wooing the local peasant girls with poetry for instance, and wooing the doctor's wife with a violin.

But that's the problem with film. Although the characterisation isn't completely two-dimensional, the esteemed doctor, for instance, shows envy and hatred. His wife also admits an ambivalent interest in Von Steubens unwholesome charm. But Stroheim seems to idealise these mountain people from the get go, which is stupid romanticism. Anyone who has such romanticism should read An Alpine Idyll, a short story by Hemingway.

Still, an interesting early Stroheim.