DVD/150: THE HOUSE OF MIRTH (Terence Davies, 2000)

Gillian Anderson is sublime as Edith Wharton's tragic heroine Lily Bart in Terence Davies' budget-constrained but reverential adaptation of THE HOUSE OF MIRTH.

1905, New York: Lily Bart is desperate... aged 29, with no inherited wealth but living with a disapproving aunt, she still needs to maintain the veneer expected of her, but an unwillingness to secure marriage with the available rich dullards leaves her exposed.

Forced into errors of judgment and despite good intentions, she slowly finds "her own level in society"; in her world, she is vulnerable to manipulation by so-called friends.

Her friend Lawrence Seldon could 'rescue' her but keeps his distance, maintaining his lawyer's salary would not satisfy Lily's debts.  Rosedale, a financier, offers marriage as a straight business proposal but Lily rejects him, realizing too late it would have offered a way out.

Ill-equipped to deal with real life, Lily is adrift...

Shelf or charity shop?  Davies' glacial pace may infuriate others but I think it serves the exquisite torture of watching Gillian Anderson's luminous Lily Bart slide from the elite into poverty.  The tight budget doesn't do Davies many favours but he is helped by committed performances from Anthony LaPaglia and Dan Ackroyd's men with money and power, Jodhi May and Eleanor Bron's unforgiving cousin and aunt, but above all, the glorious Laura Linney as Lily's smiling assassin Bertha Dorset.  Lily has found her level in society by languishing in the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box.

Dvd/150: THE LONG DAY CLOSES (Terence Davies, 1992)

 

The opening credits - Boccerini's 'Minuetto' plays over a painterly composition of a bowl of roses that imperceptibly decay - suggest a film will be emotionally uninvolving but Terence Davies' dreamlike memoir of being a loved but solitary lad in the 1950s is an emotional powerhouse if you surrender to it's pace.

Liverpool, a boarded-up house dissolves in the rain to 1955 when it was occupied by young Bud (Leigh McCormack), his beloved widowed Mother (Marjorie Yates) and his three grown siblings.  Sensitive and bullied at his new school by kids and teachers alike, Bud is never happier than being at home with his family and friendly neighbours.

 

 

Intense moments of being flow with hypnotic ease such as moving overhead from Bud swinging above the basement steps to a cinema projector beam to a church aisle to a drab schoolroom, all summing up Bud's world.

A deeply personal but universal experience.

Shelf or charity shop?  Shelf!