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Girl with a Pearl Earring
(Peter Webber, GB, 2003)
reviewed: 01-02-04
The oil on canvas Girl with a Pearl Earring, painted circa 1665 by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), now hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Netherlands, and is universally considered to be one of the great Dutch master's defining works. However, some 340 years after its creation, it still remains somewhat of a mystery – as does Vermeer enigmatic. The captivating young girl dressed in an exotic costume and looking over her shoulder has never been identified, leaving herself open to much interpretation by scholars and laymen alike. Based on Tracey Chevalier's best-selling novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring (the cinematic debut of British director Peter Webber), is a fictional take on 'the mystery behind the masterpiece'...Set in Delft in 1665, it opens with the young Griet (Scarlett Johansson) being sent to work as a maid at the house of Vermeer (Colin Firth). Soon the frustrated, complex artist becomes captivated by her quiet beauty and, when he realises she has an intuitive understanding of his work, requests that she become his assistant, eventually posing for the eponymous painting.
Subliminal, and at times sensual, the story is told at a slow, gentle pace. And, to many, it could quite easily be viewed as a pretty dull movie about a single painting where not a lot happens. However, viewed as an insight into the life of a 17th-century Dutch artist, it is fascinating and absorbing.
The most striking aspect of this film has to be, though, the stunning Oscar-nominated cinematography by the Portugese Eduardo Serra. Aided by the art direction of Ben Van Os and set design by Cecile Heideman (also Oscar nominees), the extraordinary camerawork is a veritable tour de force of cinema. The entire film is like watching a Vermeer painting in motion with the same meticulous attention to detail – especially light – that Vermeer himself employed.
Also worth a special mention is the emotive acting by Johansson and the haunting, unobtrusive music by French composer Alexandre Desplat.
Living in the Netherlands, I was especially keen to see Dutch life from that period – though felt somewhat cheated that the town of Delft was recreated and filmed in Luxembourg! However, so well done, it did succeed to help frame Vermeer's, and indeed many, canvases by Dutch masters in a realistic, historical context.
A must-see if you live in the Netherlands though I do feel, for the rest, that those with an appreciation of Vermeer's work will benefit most.
Pip Farquharson
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Director's Label: The Works of Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry (2003)
reviewed: 01-02-04
Music video/commercial directors Jonze, Cunningham and Gondry got together to produce these 3 DVD's, each containing not only examples of the directors' music video work, but also loads of extra material such as storyboards, interviews, short films and a beautifully made booklet to accompany each director's DVD. Michel Gondry is my new hero!I got the Spike Jonze DVD for Christmas and was already familiar with some of his work such as the Fat Boy Slim videos for Praise You and Weapon of Choice (featuring Christopher Walken dancing through a deserted hotel). I don't like everything he has made, but his good stuff is really excellent and he has a great talent for coming up with simple but very original concepts (like him leading a dance group outside a cinema in L.A. to the beats of FatBoy Slim).
One of my personal favourites is Drop by The Pharcyde which was filmed entirely backwards with some very amusing results. Also What's Up Fatlip? by Fatlip who seems to be one of the few rappers that dares to appear on camera without four models hanging off each arm. In fact, he cycles through suburbia with a kiddie seat on the back of his bike, lets his 6 year old cousin kick him in the balls and raps on the street clad in nothing but a dirty raincoat and a diaper.
Listening to Jonze's commentary about making some of the videos is very revealing and, accompanied by the candid descriptions of failed attempts in the booklet, helps you realize that even highly successful directors like Jonze and Cunningham make mistakes too. Chris Cunningham in particular is very critical of his own work which unfortunately resulted in his DVD containing less videos than the other two.
Cunningham's style is very dark and ominous and in some cases downright scary, as in Come To Daddy (Aphex Twin). You've probably seen it and if so, you will probably never forget it as it depicts a deformed character in a TV set screaming "Come to daddy!" at children who all have Richard D. James' grinning face (Aphex Twin himself). I can barely watch it as it is exactly the kind of thing my nightmares are made of, but Madonna obviously liked it as she asked Cunningham to direct her video for Frozen after having seen it.
Probably the most notable video on the Cunningham DVD is Bjork's All Is Full of Love in which the Icelandic songstress is a white, plastic robot on an assembly line who ends up passionately kissing an identical robot, therefore kissing herself. The movements are so fluid and well done that it's almost arousing to watch, despite all the machinery surrounding them. Bjork is the common denominator in this set of DVDs as all directors have worked with her. It is Michel Gondry however who has the most Bjork videos to his name.
Joga, Bachelorette, Hyperballad, Army of Me, Isobel and Human Behaviour are all on there, along with other artists such as Kylie Minogue, The Rolling Stones, Daft Punk and Oui Oui (a band that Gondry himself played drums in for a while). I had never heard the name Gondry until this set came out, but as I mentioned before, he is my new hero now! Wow, he makes some jaw-dropping videos which, besides pioneering new video compositing techniques, prove the guy is a genius in creative concepts. He has such a good feel for which images go with the track. Take Fell in Love With A Girl by The White Stripes for example: entirely animated out of blue, yellow, red, black and white lego blocks! It works so well particularly because he sticks to very rough shapes and doesn't overdo the details.
Gondry is the man responsible for the Rolling Stones video Like A Rolling Stone in which Patricia Arquette crawls through Manhattan in a drugged haze. That video had a very strong "how the hell did they do that?" quotient as it appears to be made up of still photographs morphed into eachother, yet has the fluidity of film. Many of his videos make you wonder "how the hell did he do that?" and how did he come up with the idea in the first place? The video for the Chemical brothers' Star Guitar is worth buying this DVD for on its own. A view from a speeding train, the landscape rushing by as you might expect it to, until you realize that the landscape is in time with the music. Buildings. bridges and trees fly in and out of the frame on the beat, almost putting you in a trance. Pure genius again (sorry to keep repeating myself).
The booklet accompanying the Gondry DVD contains background information on the making of certain videos, but also pages of personal polaroids and drawings and stories which Gondry faxed from L.A. to his 6-year-old son, Paul in Paris. There's a collection of home-movies and experiments and a documentary about Gondry, named I've Been 12 Forever, a very apt title. My favourite page in the book is one with photos of every car Gondry's father ever owned. I love that kind of wacky stuff.
Technical Problem
There is one really weird technical problem I have with the Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry DVD's. Playing the DVD on my Pioneer DV444, I thought the interface was completely crap on the main menu page as all I saw was a black screen with VIDEOS in red text. After some key-pressing on the DVD remote I discovered the other menu items, but thought it was surprisingly badly made for this kind of DVD. Then I discussed the DVDs with a friend who commented on the great menu interface. Was he kidding?!! To check it out, I popped the Gondry DVD into my computer DVD drive and lo and behold, there was a very funny menu interface of Gondry playing the drums with menu items on various tom-toms and cymbals. It was indeed really cool, but I apparently only see the 'top layer' when playing back on my Pioneer DVD. Does anyone have ANY idea what could cause that?In terms of eye-candy + inspirational material and despite the technical problem: 5 out of 5 - brilliant!
Suzanna Noort
ChokingOnPopcorn.com
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