Review

Review Date: 29-January-06
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

The White Countess (2005)

"The White Countess" is exactly the kind of thing one expects to see in January, a pedigreed art house film trying to make a few bucks off a tepid Oscar campaign and the weakest season for new releases all year. The pedigree in this case comes from the production team of Merchant-Ivory (in its last picture), the repute of novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, and the on-screen presence of Ralph Fiennes and a passel of Redgraves, bolstered by a setting with great potential for romantic exoticism. Put it all together, however, and what you get is unfortunately dull.

It may be unfair to single out Fiennes as a weakness, but he provides as good a starting point as any. Playing Todd Jackson, an ex-diplomat who opens a nightclub in 1930s Shanghai, Fiennes adopts an American accent and air of rakish insouciance that make him both dreary and unbelievable. As he mopes around trying to escape a tragic past — tragic both personally and professionally, for he couldn't save the world — Jackson lacks the seediness, looseness, and even body weight of an American who has lost it all; when he slugs bourbon he looks like he should be sipping tea. The actor normally speaks volumes with his eyes, but he's asked to quell that fire here, for Jackson is blind. This, I suppose, is indicative of the fact that he cannot or will not see the changes that take place around him. If Ishiguro meant it to generate pity, it doesn't work.

Fiennes' co-star, Natasha Richardson, is allowed to work her luminous eyes, and her countess Sofia is a much more interesting character. Born into the comfort of nobility, Sofia and her family were forced to flee Russia when the Soviets took power and now occupy a dark two-room flat in the Shanghai ghetto. Sofia supports her six-person household by working as a dance-hall girl and, when money is especially tight, yielding to partners who want more than a waltz or a tango. She finds stability in Jackson's employ, but while his trauma lies behind, hers looms ahead. The one gripping moment in "The White Countess" comes when her kinswomen (Madeleine Potter and Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, Richardson's mother and aunt) try to ostracize her for having shamed herself on their behalf. Real drama lurks in the notion of the fallen elite and the necessity and anguish of prostitution, from which this movie benefits whenever the plot turns her way.

But what with drippy old Jackson and some confusing Asian history (confusing, perhaps, because I'm ignorant), "The White Countess" doesn't keep one engrossed for long. The continued appearance of a mysterious Japanese man (Hiroyuki Sanada) signals the advent of war, which presents a final challenge to the possibility of love and redemption. (It also gives director Ivory the chance to mix his pretty deco interiors with a few explosions.) History, betrayal, grief, and hope: these have the makings of a moving and majestic film. "The White Countess" has them, but doesn't put them to good use.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.