Aubrey MaloneA Little Chaos (G)
There are so many longueurs in this, one could be forgiven for thinking the director (Alan Rickman) was on Prozac. But even though it takes its time, it believes in itself. And when a film believes in itself you find yourself believing in it too.
Small things become big and the whole atmosphere acquires a hypnotic edge.
Set in 17th Century France, it has Kate Winslet as Sabine de Barra, a widowed landscape gardener employed by André Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts) to design the grand gardens at Versailles. Le Notre likes Sabine’s unorthodox approach to her work (hence the film’s title).
It’s not exactly a plotline to pull up any trees but, as events unfold and glances and touches are exchanged between Winslet and Schoenaerts, you find yourself curiously fascinated by the effete nuances of his urbane courtly behaviour contrasted with her more reflective earthiness.
Le Notre is estranged from his wife Francoise (Helen McCrory). Francoise is gleefully unfaithful to him. The marriage is dead and they lead separate lives. Will he in turn be unfaithful to her with Winslet? Who knows.
Rickman acts as well as directs, giving us a rather jaded King Louis XIV. His camp brother Duke Philippe d’Orleans is played by Stanley Tucci. Tuccisteals what few scenes he›s in with his Wildean witticisms.
Winslet carries that sense of perplexed curiosity she does so well throughout most of the movie. She hasn’t much to do, which means that when she tries to stop the sabotaging of her plans by the jealous Francoise – or when she becomes traumatised by the memory of how her husband and daughter died – these rank as moments of high drama in an otherwise eventless tableau.
In essence, this is a work of playful innuendo. It’s like a delicate fugue where the symbolism of nature’s bounty acts as an objective correlate to the emotional devastation undergone by Winslet – and indeed Rickman. (He becomes widowed in the course of the film).
Some of you will probably be bored by the leisurely pace but, if you’re patient, you might also find yourself becoming entranced by it.
My only problem with it was the fact that so many of the cast have cut-glass English accents. Rickman could have had them speaking English in French accents (a compromised solution to the problem) or employed a French script with subtitles. This would probably have killed the film at the box office. (Research has shown that people are usually too lazy to bother with subtitles these days, which is a pity.)
I also found much of the script too modern. Phrases like ‘Look who’s here’, ‘ahead of the game’, etc. struck me as decidedly anachronistic. There are also many more. But visually it’s a handsome and sumptuous film and the costumes capture the period consummately.
Rickman looks more puffed up than usual but he still has that lovely crushed velvet voice. He manages to work both before and behind the camera with the delicacy and precision we’ve come to expect from him.
*** Good