Julia und Julia

Shooting an entire feature on high-definition (circa 1987) video may have saved the producers a few bucks, but you get what you pay for: in this case a technically shoddy, low-key melodrama with little to recommend it besides an offbeat cast. It was presented at the time as a technological breakthrough, but it's safe to say there were still a few bugs to be worked out of the process: in the late 1980s high-definition video still equaled low-definition film, and the eyesore of too many blurred movements distracts attention away from the story itself. Which may be a blessing in disguise, because the story is just an extended Twilight Zone episode, portentous to the point of self-parody, about a widow of six years who shifts between her lonely life and an alternate reality where her husband is alive, along with the child she never had. Has she suddenly awakened from six years of retroactive amnesia, or is she only hallucinating? The film (can we call it that?) was a big hit in Italy, so maybe it suffers in translation.

Mindboggling storyline, beautiful photography, over the edge performance by Turner. The hard to follow logic could be a turn off but if you're a Sting fan, as always, he's a definite turn-on. Basically there as a sexual escapism for Turner's character, you will get to see Sting at his most erotic lovemaking, from panting start to orgasmic groans. Your best reward: Sting lying stomach down and completely naked in a beautifully dawn-lit shot. The scene is short, but Sting's golden hairy buttocks will stay with you forever!

I'm a lifelong suspense/mystery fan, I do not enter this realm ill-prepared.

Consequently, when I write that "Julia and Julia" is a very special film, I do not do so ill-advised. Our friend Alfred Hitchcock would have envied this fascinating, morbid tale of love found, tragically lost, yet found and lost again. And again. Serving as a hyper-psychological "thriller", it is far above simply that. Argueably, there is no strict filmic category for it. The story is of a woman's life after having lost her husband in a car crash on their honeymoon. It's also about a woman who chooses to have an illicit, extramarital affair with a perfect stranger. It's also about...well...you should decide for yourself. Direction and writing are both truly sublime. It is surreal, the viewer is left pondering aghast until the end, indeed way beyond. From a devout Hitchcockian, Julia and Julia is forever one of my all-time favorite movies.

Julia and Julia has an interesting and well-developed plot, so I'm afraid to say that Sting's naked body isn't the best part of it! (sorry girls) The movie has some weak points (seems to be video/35 mm and the mix is a bit strange; the incidental music is a bit cheesy) but its strong points (original and thrilling story, smart structure and, most of all, the ending) help Julia & Julia to become a strange and enjoyable movie -something like David Lynch's flicks ancestor (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, eg).

I found this film much like "Sliding Doors" in which Gywneth Paltrow found herself wondering should she have caught the train or missed the train? In this film, Kathleen Turner wonders if her husband really died or did she imagine the whole thing?

The film begins with Turner as a bride marrying Gabriel Byrne. Unfortunately, after the wedding dinner, they drive off into the sunset and into the path of a truck. The car overturns and Byrne dies ... or did he?

Turner grieves pitifully for her groom. And begins a journey into two worlds...one in which she is still married to Byrne and has a young son opposed to one life in which she is a widow working as a travel agent who makes the acquaintance of a very, sexy Sting (Gordon Sumner). Ladies, if you don't enjoy this film, please fast forward to Sting lying on the bed nude...worth the view! (smile)