Weekly round-up

>> Hatchet horror, a very long love affair,
gypsy jams and sentimental chats

BEAUTIFUL DISAPPOINTMENT: Love in the Time of Cholera

by HILLARY BRENHOUSE,
MALCOLM FRASER,
ANNE MARIE MARKO
and MARK SLUTSKY

Love in the Time of Cholera

Producer Scott Steindorff pestered Gabriel García Márquez for two years before the reticent author agreed to give one of his novels over to an English-language film adaptation. The result is a beautiful disappointment. Though it’s especially faithful to the book, fans of the Latin literary giant’s sprawling masterpiece will lament the onscreen version’s inability to capture García Márquez’s magic. Even taken on its own terms, the movie feels forced and unbearably slow-paced.

In 19th century Cartagena, a lowly telegrapher named Florentino (Javier Bardem plays him as an adult) falls into instant, everlasting love with the stunning Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). Their adolescent affair continues on by mail even after Fermina’s social-climbing father (John Leguizamo) whisks her away to the countryside. Upon her return, Fermina is wed to the worldly, wealthy Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), but the fixated Florentino persists in his devotion. He waits over 51 years for her husband to die, consoling himself with hundreds of sexual conquests in the meanwhile.

Shot by director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) on location in the coastal South American town, the picture is aesthetically striking. It’s unfortunate that most of its multinational cast indulge in overheated acting and bad Colombian-accented English. Bratt and Leguizamo are cursed with some particularly stale dialogue, the former offering his sexually inexperienced wife a “lesson in love” in one affected scene. The film’s sweeter moments arrive late; Cholera is most tender at its close, when Florentino and Fermina finally reunite as an elderly couple. But you’ll have to wait through a turbulent half century—and it will seem that long—to get there. (HB)

Hatchet

ALL THRILLS, NO CHILLS: Hatchet

Writer/director Adam Green describes Hatchet, his contribution to the film genre equivalent of the ’80s hair band, as “Old-school American horror.” Old-school? Check. American? Fuck, yeah! Horror? Not so fast, Mr. Green. I wouldn’t crown myself the new king of blood-and-guts until I could deliver the chills to go with the thrills. Still, Green takes a spirited stab at it and a new legend, Victor Crowley, aka Hatchet-Face, the latest disfigured un-killable killing machine, is born.

Despite being at Mardi Gras where the endless sea of bare breasts should take his mind off getting dumped, Ben (Joel David Moore) would still rather go on a boat ride through a gator-ridden haunted swamp at night with his wisecracking buddy, Marcus, who himself would rather be swimming in the endless sea of bare breasts. Luckily for them, there are ladies on the boat. Unluckily for them and the ladies, the tour is cut short when the boat slams into a rock and starts sinking. Could it get worse?

According to the mysteriously surly, gun-wielding fellow passenger, Marybeth, it just did. Turns out that they landed in the woods right near the old Crowley house and it isn’t long before Hatchet-Face himself, looking not unlike the Michelin Man in denim overalls, is ripping off heads, arms and legs with singular gusto.

Though Hatchet is more style than substance, it should give fanatics of the genre something to dissect and debate until the next challenger comes along. Robert Englund makes a cameo. (AMM)

Gypsy Caravan

ROVING ROMA: Gypsy Caravan

An energetic documentary about Roma (aka Gypsy) culture, music and history from director Jasmine Dellal, with cinematography by Alain de Halleux and legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles. The film follows five groups of Roma performers from four countries as they embark on a group tour of the U.S., playing their music to sold-out crowds, hanging out and talking about their ancient lifestyle, true anachronisms in the 21st century.

Despite their shared heritage, the groups represent a diverse array of backgrounds and musical forms. Romania’s Taraf de Haidouks, who have played in Montreal before, are a cymbalom-powered Eastern European-flavoured string band; Indian group Maharaja is a raga-fuelled performance troupe led by a cross-dresser named Harish; the Spanish Antonio el Pipa Flamenco Ensemble is, unsurprisingly, flamenco-flavoured and Macedonian Esma Redzepova is a singer known as the “Queen of the Gypsies.”

With trips back home intercut with the North American journey, Gyspy Caravan presents a nuanced portrait of a fascinating and often maligned culture that’s more diverse than most give it credit for. With some surprising cameo appearances, including a thoughtful interview with Johnny Depp, who befriended Taraf de Haidouks on the set of Sally Potter’s film The Man Who Cried. (MS)

Dialogue avec mon jardinier

In this light drama from director Jean Becker, a middle-aged Parisian painter (Caché’s Daniel Auteuil) retires to his family’s country home in the midst of a divorce. When he decides to hire a gardener to plant some vegetables in the back acreage, the man for the job turns out to be his boyhood chum Léo (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), now a retired railway worker who does odd jobs. As the title indicates, the bulk of the film is comprised of conversations between the two men.

Auteuil basically plays a slight variation on his usual screen persona, a put-upon bourgeois Parisian baby boomer. He does it well, but there’s not much new to it. Darroussin, a busy character actor whose face will be familiar to any regular viewer of French films, is much more interesting and sympathetic as the folksy gardener. The subtext of the film is the unspoken class system in France, and the contrast of lifestyles and philosophies between rural and urban life.

Given that it’s a French film, this topic is addressed with more intelligence and subtlety than you’d get from say, Hollywood. But not as much as it could have been: Darroussin basically plays a wise simpleton whose entire purpose in the film is to enrich Auteuil’s world view. Becker sets up an interesting premise, but toes the cheese line throughout before stepping firmly over it at the end. The interplay between the two actors is charming, but ultimately, for better or worse it’s a sentimental melodrama. (MF)

All films open this
Friday, Nov. 16

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