Stealing Beauty ** 1/2
(Palo Alto Square) After 15 years of wandering the Earth, Bernardo Bertolucci ("The Last Emperor," "The Sheltering Sky," "Little Buddha") has returned home to make a film in Italy. "Stealing Beauty" is a true love letter to the Tuscan landscape, captured in its burnt sienna glory by cinematographer Darius Khondji ("Seven") just as encroaching signs of "civilization" begin to scar the countryside forever. Whereas these images are stunning, some of the acting and staging are not--provoking laughter for all the wrong reasons.
The story by Bertolucci and novelist Susan Minot focuses on a 19-year-old American girl who returns to Tuscany for a summer with family friends, a group of bohemian artists. Lucy is on a quest. The diary of her free-spirited mother, a poet who recently died, hints about the identity of Lucy's biological father. Lucy not only seeks an answer to the mystery, but hopes to find love in the same olive grove where she was conceived.
Looking somewhat like a cross between her Aerosmith father and a young colt, Liv Tyler confidently assumes the lead as the young virgin. Bertolucci's direction steals her innocent beauty in close-ups, but then sabotages it when capturing her penning bad poetry or dancing wildly, alone, in her room. When a party at an elegant villa threatens to become a full-blown musical number, one wonders if Mel Brooks has taken charge of the production. After such misguided scenes, only the admirable performances of Jeremy Irons as a dying writer and Donal McCann as an inspired painter-sculptor rescue the film from lunacy--undoubtedly caused by one of Bertolucci's full moons. In English with a smattering of Italian. Rated R for language, nudity and adult subject matter. 2 hours, 7 min.
--Susan Tavernetti
Striptease * 1/2
(Century 16, Century 12) Last year, in "The Scarlet Letter," Demi Moore portrayed Hester Prynne as an anomalistically enlightened, can-do woman who threatened the local political establishment--a woman with too much attitude for the 17th century and a better person than anyone else alive, save her innocent daughter.
In "Striptease," Moore again plays an enlightened, can-do woman who threatens the local political establishment--a woman with too much attitude for our repressed modern world and a better person than anyone else alive today, save her innocent daughter.
What's next, "The Hillary Clinton Story"?
Meant to be a comedy of adventure and suspense like "The Freshman" or "Honeymoon in Las Vegas" (both of which were also written and directed by Andrew Bergman), "Striptease" has the excesses of plot, shallowness of character and absence of imagination of a second-rate soap opera. But what can you expect from a "comedy" whose star is at a stage in her career where she only plays martyrs and saints?
The saint in "Striptease" is a fine up-standing woman who must dance in a strip club in order to earn the money she needs for a custody battle with her sleazeball ex-husband. (The story is told completely without irony; the premise is that she is a victim, not a comic character.) Crimes and misdemeanors follow, but wit and suspense do not.
For the record, Moore looks terrific. But there is not a single erotic moment in the film, nor an entertainingly trashy scene. What "Striptease" does provide, however, are an extraordinary number of shots of Demi Moore bending over as she dances, her buns of steel filling the screen. Martyrdom has never had a more unlikely icon. Rated R.
--Leonard Schwarz
Ma Saison Preferee ***
(Guild) Director Andre Technice has lifted up a rock and shined a bright light on the teeming, dark world of Family. Berthe (Marthe Villalonga) is aging and suffering blackouts and shouldn't live alone anymore. She hates her daughter Emilie's house in Toulouse. It's too bourgeois, too extravagant. Emilie (Catherine Deneuve) and her husband, Bruno (Jean-Pierre Bouvier), attorneys who work together in the same office, are at a loss for ideas. Emilie sneaks a meeting with her estranged brother, Antoine (Daniel Auteuil), whom she has not seen for three years, and invites him to Christmas dinner. The fireworks are just beginning.
Some of the fun of this film is watching all the complicated, tense relationships slowly unfold. Clearly the primary one is between the brother and sister, who have a deep affinity for each other that no spouse can compete with. As the film progresses, we learn Antoine's love for his sister borders on obsession. There are so many simmering connections in this film waiting to explode into a thousand hours of therapy, one can't wait for the next session.
In telling the story of family and obsession, Techine lets some wonderful screen actors loose on the screen, and they never look back. He filmed most scenes with two cameras, so he could cut between them, getting the most interesting shot. Most scenes are improvised, and he would hold the script back from the actors until just before they filmed, giving the film an improvised, natural quality.
Deneuve is simply stunning here. Her character is mercurial, sometimes closed down, sometimes maniacally outraged. Her face and eyes are so active, her character so much more aggressive than the typical passive, icy Deneuve.
Auteuil is also fascinating with his self-monitoring pep talks in the bathroom and his manic-depressive behavior. His actions make it clear over the course of the film that his sister is the only woman he has ever really loved.
Villalonga as the ailing mother is striking, both strong and weak, wavering between formidable matriarch and scared child.
Unfortunately, Techine's own obsession is with nonlinear storytelling, and the reasons for this are never clear. At the end, I was trying to piece the story together and felt that was just what he wanted me to be doing--but to what end? Either the projectionist showed some reels out of order, or once again, I was in the presence of a director who feels the need to impose clever complexity on a story already rich and intriguing enough without the heavy hand of some auteur toying with time. Not rated. 2 hours, 9 min.
--Jim Shelby