Bright Star (2009)
Country: GB/AUS
Technical: col 119m
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Synopsis:
In Hampstead village love blooms between seamstress Fanny Brawne and young poet John Keats. Unloved by the critics and without any means of his own, he seems a hopeless proposition for the very practical Brawnes, who nevertheless move into the house next door. Once there, despite the antagonism of their landlord, Keats's friend and protector, the relationship has a freer rein and for a moment Fanny glimpses the possiblity of happiness.
Review:
Ethereal, unexpansive treatment of a story that survives only in the poet's writings. The treatment, for the most part intimate, confined to close-ups in drawing rooms, at times pulls back to observe from afar, like the bird's eye view shot of the characters running across a field after the false Valentine incident, reminding one of the hilltop flight of Anna Paquin in The Piano. Indeed the whole scenario, of a woman's sensitivity to art in a harsh world, is not dissimilar. A very feminist film, then, with its obnoxious Mr Brown, despoiler of maidservants, but one which beguiles in its performances by the three principals, and Campion's eye for natural beauty and telling detail.
Country: GB/AUS
Technical: col 119m
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Synopsis:
In Hampstead village love blooms between seamstress Fanny Brawne and young poet John Keats. Unloved by the critics and without any means of his own, he seems a hopeless proposition for the very practical Brawnes, who nevertheless move into the house next door. Once there, despite the antagonism of their landlord, Keats's friend and protector, the relationship has a freer rein and for a moment Fanny glimpses the possiblity of happiness.
Review:
Ethereal, unexpansive treatment of a story that survives only in the poet's writings. The treatment, for the most part intimate, confined to close-ups in drawing rooms, at times pulls back to observe from afar, like the bird's eye view shot of the characters running across a field after the false Valentine incident, reminding one of the hilltop flight of Anna Paquin in The Piano. Indeed the whole scenario, of a woman's sensitivity to art in a harsh world, is not dissimilar. A very feminist film, then, with its obnoxious Mr Brown, despoiler of maidservants, but one which beguiles in its performances by the three principals, and Campion's eye for natural beauty and telling detail.
Country: GB/AUS
Technical: col 119m
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Synopsis:
In Hampstead village love blooms between seamstress Fanny Brawne and young poet John Keats. Unloved by the critics and without any means of his own, he seems a hopeless proposition for the very practical Brawnes, who nevertheless move into the house next door. Once there, despite the antagonism of their landlord, Keats's friend and protector, the relationship has a freer rein and for a moment Fanny glimpses the possiblity of happiness.
Review:
Ethereal, unexpansive treatment of a story that survives only in the poet's writings. The treatment, for the most part intimate, confined to close-ups in drawing rooms, at times pulls back to observe from afar, like the bird's eye view shot of the characters running across a field after the false Valentine incident, reminding one of the hilltop flight of Anna Paquin in The Piano. Indeed the whole scenario, of a woman's sensitivity to art in a harsh world, is not dissimilar. A very feminist film, then, with its obnoxious Mr Brown, despoiler of maidservants, but one which beguiles in its performances by the three principals, and Campion's eye for natural beauty and telling detail.