Reviews

From the beginning we are in an unreal world, we see our young heroine (Anika) head off to the big city with her mother's blessing to stay with her friend and hopefully win the man of her dreams. The shots are warm and colourful with tints almost never seen in nature.

It doesn't quite work like that, she has to work in a factory and it becomes clear that the man of her dreams is an elusive being, even her friend's perfect man proves not to be. Works is hard and she fights with her friend who has changed and become totally immersed in the city. Still somehow Anika keeps her innocence and the final sequence of her flying away in a car is indicative of how she can fly above the coarse world around.

This is a work of art and how many films can you say that about?

Rashomon like it plays with memory. Do the young lovers really remember the most tender and precious of their memories? The film opens with Jansci wondering if his first memory of Kata really happened. A later recollection he keeps flashing back to and is obviously precious never occurred. He confuses the two women in his life. Do the lovers really see the person or merely an idealised image of each other which only exists in their minds.

Then it is a love story for Hungary. Kata obviously suffers both being apart from Jansci and in her isolation from home. Her last monologue points this out very poignantly.

Note the masterly way in which the director critiques the isolation of the Eastern bloc in showing what a big deal it is to be able to travel outside the country! And it shows how the world can get in the way of love. But so can wanting to love

This is a film for which you have to suspend disbelief more than for most cinematic experiences. The Visual symbolism is obvious but none the worse for it, each element of this film leading into another.

The restaurant is red, for wealth and for greed; the ladies is a white haven, the human figures looking out of place there. Finally the book repository is sparse, echoing the couple's nakedness. They have earlier been washed and the choir boy sings 'wash me', the lovers are reborn and have an all too brief innocent time.

Innocence (or a warped kind admittedly) contrasts with Albert who is a creature of nightmare - a selfish bully, lacking any real power and we get tantalizing glimpses of a more vulnerable side which he is at pains to deny and he takes out his insecurities on those around him. It is that which makes his such a wonderful villain.

The weak and the pure win out against him eventually leading to a sort of happily ever after - but in this film nothing is that simple. It is a fairy tale for cynics.

This film is fascinating not only for the human interest of all of the participants in themselves but for the light it sheds on America.

I suppose the first thing I must comment on is the notion of the bee itself. I come from the UK and I don't think it could ever catch on here. Our culture is not a competitive one and when I first heard about this film I gaped at the notion of making a mundane thing like spelling a competitive event. In a way however I admire it, children have something more to strive for than just a good grade in a test. On the other hand it is a little ridiculous.

Another thing I liked about it was the fact it is purely American. We know America from the movies, we have American culture thrust down our throats at halloween and Christmas. But there is a distinct culture of its own and this film reminds us of that.

However it is in showing us the world of America this film truly excels. the children come from all backgrounds - from recent immigrants to patrician families to from cuddly Moms to rednecks to black single parents. The little girl Nurpa was congratulated by her community on a sign when she won a regional bee which I thought showed the inclusiveness of the American ideal. And above all the on the democracy of it. Many of the children come from disadvantaged backgrounds and yet they get the chance to compete. This is wonderful. But still I found it interesting most of these children were from middle class backgrounds.

I remember seeing this when I went to Finland as an exchange student and we were all shown this in the introductory week.

My friend said it was 'very,very Finnish'.

I didn't realise it then but I later saw she was right.

A sense of the ridiculous pervades the entire setting, from the old man with his stories, the interloper interrupting the wedding making snide comments about the sentimentality of the old people, the eccentric with the stone. The Finns are the only people in the world with such a sense of the foolish of life, and the only people in the world, apart from the British, able to mock themselves. But there are real issues - the community is dying, the young people are leaving because the practicalities of life demand they make a living which the country cannot provide (exemplified by the character Pekka who has moved to Sweden) yet still there is a sense for them that this is real life for them and to the village they will always return around midsummer. It is in the country side that the Finns have their soul and this film shows that off perfectly.

But the hazy lighting the film is shot reminds us that summer must end, as it did the day I saw this.

I really don't know why I came out of the cinema in such a good mood after seeing this. The issues it deals with are disturbing, two people who do not seem to have a distinct sense of self as existing apart from each other and exist in a fantasy world. The scene where Theo forces Matthew to have sex with Isobelle is clearly due to a sort of attraction he has for him (witness after the scene how Theo wanted to know if Matthew had been turned on by watching Theo masturbate). And the naive Matthew goes along with all this, until the siblings threaten to shave his pubes, thus threatening his masculine identity, threatening to somehow break him.

And at the back of all this is the tumult of the violent world which none of them seem to understand entirely, each grasping different aspects of the whole. Theo understands the revolutionary side, Matthew how the world works and Isobelle a sense of underlying order and beauty even as she is a chaotic element.

*possible spoilers

I remember watching this with my parents one evening when I was bored. I must confess I do have a soft spot for these bland British films of the fifties with their incestuous casts and inoffensive plots.

However this film is actually surprisingly dark. Our heroine is offered the part of Lady Godiva in a city pagent (though chastely dressed), is spotted by a beauty queen scout and she doesn't look back. However the beauty contest is fixed - she only wins because she has swapped costumes with another girl and the judges were told to pick the girl wearing it... Having been picked up by showbiz she is promptly dropped and eventually - no one wanting to employ a washed up model in the dramatic world - she is cast in a french review, as a nude, probably the equivalent of a porn film today.

Rescue comes in the shape of her family and an Australian who takes her to Oz, weds her and they live happily - though she is a little battle scarred.

It has the appearence of a typical bland film of the era, but it does contain hidden depth. The old story of a girl being abandoned by the showbiz that courted her is timeless. A remake might be in order to give it a wider audience.

This is a film about romance, but it is certainly not about eroticism or lust. I doubt if any other film has ever portrayed the unnatainable in such a perfect way, but it is an ideal that the composer does not ever wish to attain.

Consider one early seen in the film, where he kisses the photographs of his wife and daughter (incidently what happened to his wife? We see nothing of her after the disasterous concert, yet paradoxically while she is not there when he is first taken in, his sparring partner in the arts is), and yet there is nothing physical in his passion for Tadzo, even when he does touch him to ruffle his hair, it is a gesture one might make to a child, oddly awkward and platonic.

Similarly when Tadzo smiles at him provocatively, he says 'you shouldn't smile like that. Why else would he say that except to show that he regards the boy as something pure, unsordid, unknowing and beautiful. And the only time he expresses his emotions is when he says 'I love you in' the church.

He never seeks him out, never dreams anything unbecoming of him. Here after all is a man who could not bring himself to copulate with the only prostitute who knew music, in other words had any conception of beauty. His love is pure.

And it is the knowledge of the fragility of beauty which kills him, when he sees the boy paddling in the sea, the source of the cholera which is affecting the city, the composer dies, as the beauty that he sees will die.

If you are like me, you will enjoy this film when it is over, it is too long, several sequences need to be cut.I freely admit that I was bored while I was watching this film, but it left an impression on me. There are three main protagonists, Michele ('19 years old and knows it'), a student aimlessly whiling away the summer holidays, Linda, a journalist on retreat and Brother Bernard, a man who in the words of the director, has never been hugged.

There is a quote in the film 'life is made up of lots of little things' and so is this film, the awkward silence when you are introduced to someone by a slight aquaintance, Michele masquerading as a nun, small talk, unintentianally funny moments, the sunlight in the trees, a growing friendship, writer's block. All unobtrusive yet somehow prominant. And at the end, the strange comfort that 'I know my immaculate heart will prevail'. A meaningless sentiment, yet strangely apt and correct, as each charactor learns to be a little more feeling and human.