Grey Gardens (1975) Review - Documentary

Plot Summary - Documentary about oddly unusual mother and daughter "Big Edie" and "Little Edie", aunt and cousin of Jackie O, who live almost isolated away in "Grey Gardens", their rundown mansion in East Hampton. The two women, both Edith Bouvier Beale, are both somewhat eccentric, especially the daughter. Older Edie is approaching eighty years old, is mainly seen from her bed - covered with cats and clutter - and talking about her years as a trained singer - sometimes she breaks out in song. Little Edie, mid-fifties, never married, and distinguished for her wide variety of extremely odd headdresses she wears throughout the entire film - assembled from scarves, and more often blouses and sweaters, hooked and decorated with pins, often speaks of her lost life stuck in East Hampton for over twenty years (pretty much blaming mama), she seems full of regrets, yet it appears that it was really her own choices that lead to this all along. She often dances, sings, and flirts into the camera (and yes, even flirts briefly with the men filming the documentary - barely seen, but you hear them speak sometimes to the women). The two women often talk over each other, argue a lot, yet seem to be totally bonded. The house they live in is huge, very rundown (apparently less than it was a few years back), and is just full of cats and some raccoons too.

Review - This film is bizarre and totally fascinating, I really enjoyed watching this! I feel like the mom is just getting old and perhaps a bit cranky and demanding of her daughter - the daughter is really the one with perhaps some mental problems, yet like her too - Little Edie has such a vulnerability about her, she is a very interesting character. The film is entirely filmed in the great old house, the camera constantly focusing on the women - often in facial close-ups so you really see the emotions coming through on their faces. One part I enjoyed was seeing the women show the filmmakers old photographs of themselves, both of them were once beautiful young women living the society lifestyle - young Edie described in an old newspaper clipping as a beautiful deb that writes poetry. The women, yes, are rather strange, but you just have to love them - I enjoyed spending time with these two. Rating - 10/10 stars

Tess (1979) Film Review - Roman Polanski directed

Plot Summary - Directed by Roman Polanski - a sweeping, dark epic set in the English countryside of the 1880's, telling the tale of the downfall of a beautiful young woman named Tess (Nastassia Kinski). POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD - - The village parson informs Tess's father that their family, though downtrodden and poor peasants, are actually of knightly ancestry - descendants of a titled family, the d'Urbervilles. Tess's parents decide to send daughter Tess to make favor with a local, wealthy woman by the name d'Urberville. Tess arrives and meets the handsome, roguish son Alec who is immediately drawn to her beauty - soon Tess is hired on to work at their estate's poultry farm. Turns out this rich family are not actually related, as their title was purchased. Son Alec carries Tess off into the woods one day, seduces, and pretty much rapes her - Tess leaves and returns to her family, a baby follows who shortly dies. Tess sets out on her own to work on a dairy farm where she meets the good-looking (loved by every lady who works at the dairy) Angel (Peter Firth), noble son of a preacher. Angel and Tess fall in love, but after marriage he finds out her true "background" (obviously the fact she had a baby so was not "pure" is what really bugs this guy) and runs away to Brazil, leaving her without contact despite her efforts to write to him. Tess sets out, on her own again, working various horrible, dirty jobs. What will happen between her, her husband, and the man from her past?!

Review - A compelling watch, gorgeously photographed - every scene, filmed on-location in France to duplicate the English countryside and villages, looking like a picture postcard. Nastassja Kinski is at the height of her beauty - an absolutely gorgeous young woman. Something about her reminds me of a very young Ingrid Bergman (partly the similar accents). Okay - she's meant to be an English girl and has a subtle German accent - just ignore that. I loved the costumes in this, I must say. This film won several Oscars, including costume design, cinematography, and art/set direction - no surprise there. A lovely, inspired orchestral score by Phillipe Sarde accompanies the film, a good match to the story. The story, based on the classic novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, is pretty dark (the poor girl!) but an entertaining watch. I haven't seen this film since the early 80s, so it was almost like seeing it for the first time. A beautifully done film - loved! (USA release 1980 for this) Rating - 10/10 stars

Cries and Whispers (1972) Film Review - Ingmar Bergman

Plot Summary - Swedish language film, directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set at the turn of the last century, the film tells the story of a dying fortyish woman, Agnes (Harriet Andersson), facing her last few days of life as we see her in her bed, in agonizing pain. But the story is also about the three women who are in the house awaiting her death - her two sisters, Maria and Karin, and her devoted maid Anna - who then face what comes before them in their own futures. Agnes remembers in flashback her childhood and painful relationship with her mother, who she basically stalks around after, watching from behind sheer curtains. We see in flashback beautiful red-headed sister Maria (Liv Ullmann) having an affair with the doctor who currently treats Agnes. We also see some background for rather loony sis Karin, who has a pretty bad relationship with her boring, stern hubbie. Later in the film the two sisters, self-centered Maria and hard-hearted Karin, try to patch up what appears to be a years long bad sister relationship between them.

Review - This is a very unusual film (though not so unusual, as Ingmar Bergman films go). It's very quiet - mainly the sounds of the clock ticking, breathing, bells chiming, the wind, a chorus of whispering voices - and close to no background music. Many of the scenes are extreme facial close-ups of the different women looking into the camera - very interesting camerawork with softly filtered light coming through the windows, and red fades between scenes. The red color theme permeates the entire film, most scenes taking place in just a few rooms of the house, the bedroom, the "red drawing room", the dining room - all done with red painted walls and red upholstered furnishing. The women are often wearing white dresses, except when Maria is seen seducing the doctor in the flashback scene, she is dressed in a low-cut red lacy gown - when Karin is seen in flashback, in an uncomfortable dinner scene across the table from her husband, she wears black. The time at which each scene is taking place switches back and forth through the film, sometimes going back several years. The characters in this all have pretty odd relationships with each other, very complex and emotional - they're quite the dysfunctional family, especially that Karin who gets up to some pretty disturbing stuff. The scenes where poor Agnes is moaning in pain are hard to watch, but I found this film as a whole very fascinating and thought-provoking. I have liked every Ingmar Bergman film I've seen - I like these sort of slow, visual films. The DVD I saw of this is from the Criterion Collection and the print, of course, looks terrific. Rating - 9 to 10/10 stars