>>REVIEW
THE WHITE COUNTESS
STARRING Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Lynn Redgrave and Vanessa Redgrave
DIRECTED BY James Ivory
Opens Friday, March 31
The Plaza
It's difficult to judge Merchant-Ivory's The White Countess without considering the longtime producer-director partnership that so recently ended with the death of Ismail Merchant. While Countess surely isn't one of the Merchant-Ivory team's finest works, it is indeed a solid piece of dignified cinema carried squarely on the shoulders of the acting royalty that fill it.
The mysterious ex-diplomat Jackson’s (Ralph Fiennes) blindness at the hands of family tragedy leads him to open The White Countess – his ideal bar. Staffed carefully with hand-selected bouncers, musicians, bartenders and the titular hostess, Sofia (Natasha Richardson) – Jackson creates his own little world amid the tensions of pre-war Shanghai. Sofia, a Russian countess working as a high-class call girl despite the disapproval of her judgmental and hateful aristocratic family (to whom she hands over every cent she earns), is Jackson's ideal candidate for the club, in mystique, personality and namesake.
As is typical with any Merchant-Ivory film, emotions are hidden and compartmentalized, both Jackson and Sofia sharing nothing of their private lives outside of the club. While the Japanese invasion of Shanghai grows closer, so do our protagonists. Assisted by the connections of the enigmatic Matsuda (Hiroyuki Sanada), The White Countess bar has created the perfectly mixed environment of political, racial and economic differences – "a blank canvas" from which Jackson (and soon Matsuda) work to create their own little world.
The White Countess holds no true surprises – Jackson and Sofia's growing feelings for one another is such a given that once they finally admit to it, the scene comes as more of a relief than revelation. Filmed by brilliant cinematographer Christopher Doyle, The White Countess is never anything less than gorgeous and the same can easily be said for its actors.
The backdrop of the Shanghai invasion, at least, gives The White Countess some genuinely interesting angles not altogether familiar to the cinema screen. Filmed entirely on location, the re-enactment of the invasion holds added weight – distant explosions, random bombs and streets flooded with thousands of escapees at the actual sites of these events gives a heightened sense of historical accuracy (not to mention respect).
Where The White Countess truly shines is in the presence of the Redgrave sisters, Lynn (Olga) and Vanessa (Aunt Sara), not to mention Vanessa's daughter Richardson whose stiff upper lip rarely quivers in the face of doing what's best for her daughter Katya (Madeleine Daly). Fiennes does his jovial blind man routine with ease (aping his Ivy League American accent from Quiz Show) – the perfectly lost stranger in a strange land.
While the death of Merchant is indeed a distinct loss to cinema – very few partnerships have lasted quite so long, creating a lengthy filmography of such patient and stately work – The White Countess acts as a fitting epitaph. Playing on the hidden emotional restraints and gradual façade-crumbling they've dwelled in for years, Merchant-Ivory's The White Countess fits in line as one final characteristic exploration of the walls we build and what it takes to bring them toppling down. |
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