The Designated Mourner

I stumbled across this film late one night, as if i had stumbled into a dream, one i couldn't draw myself from.

The lack of set puts all emphasis on the long monologues, which are delivered with such riveting feeling that the character's words fail not to touch you in someway.The script seems split between drawing from reality's loneliness and hurt, and poetry's cutting imagery and sentiment, which altogether creates some haunting myth.The entire cast (numbering but three and including a fabulous Miranda Richardson)are thoroughly engaging-Mike Nickols carries the film admirably-their characters seem locked in the retelling of the story, utterly lost in the memories and who can help but reflect the feelings of identity and loneliness upon themselves.

"The Designated Mourner" is obviously not a cinema film in any meaningful sense. It is a play staged for cinema recording. Three characters and a table; that is the amount of it. None of the characters interact, instead directly addressing the camera. Perhaps this is boring, if visual stimulation is a requirement of cinema, but yet it seemed utterly compelling to me.

The performances from all three of the cast are riveting, but it is Nichols who raises this above the usual public-subsidised arty nonsense. He is quite simply revelatory. As a man whom most know for his directorial work, the depth of the performance is a great surprise. Very possibly his almost "non-acting" style could be attributed to the fact that he is not a professional *film* actor, but the naturalistic style he employs lends his character such a gravity. It is almost documentary in it's sincerity. Jack is a deeply flawed man, in many ways a reprehensible man, who merely assumes the intellectual values of those around him while in fact cultivating considerable distaste for his high-brow friends. He is, though, often a very funny man and it never becomes impossible to understand or empathise with him. His epiphany at the climax of the film, surrounded by cheap magazines and pornography, is completely heart-breaking. As the title of the film begins to make a terrible, Orwellian sense, we are left with nothing but this broken man, lamenting unavoidable actions in which he seems almost complicit.

This is certainly an important piece of work, if perhaps not an important *film*, if nothing else, it will give people who may never have the chance to see the play staged the opportunity to see it performed.

What does it mean to be an intellectual? is it a facade comprised of book-learned knowledge, some peripheral understanding of poetry, art, and literature that are ultimately the persona known to others as one's self? Or is it the inner core of a person who possesses not simply a mere knowledge, but rather engages in communal understanding with the work of art, living and experiencing it? These are some of the many questions that this film raises. What these three actors -- who sit at a table, talking into the camera -- manage to accomplish is beyond my comprehension. If you like writers like Joyce or Kafka, if you enjoy poetry and intellectual stimulation in general, you will most likely appreciate this picture.

'The Designated Mourner', a play by Wallace Shawn, is above all else an exercise in writing. Three people (in this adaptation by David Hare, sat statically throughout in one of two locations, one of which appears to be a television news desk, the other a table in a small café), discuss their relationship. But although they respond to each other in tone, they rarely directly address the subject material that the others refer to; and the wider backdrop to their personal story, a crypto-fascist coup, is mentioned only elliptically by all three participants, just as it might be in real conversation where certain things would be taken as known. But there's little that's naturalistic or conventionally conversational about these carefully constructed interlaced monologues; they better represent the inner voices of self-justification (or alternatively, the voices of published autobiography). In spite of the artifice, one does develop a sophisticated sense for the nuances of the trio's characters; everyone has an agenda, and deciphering the three unreliable narrators is exactly the point. Thi particular film of the play is well acted, and it's probably sensible that Hare has chosen to add very little to the basic script (having made this decision, almost his only work as director is to choose when to cut between alternative close-ups). But while theatre has to work within certain intrinsic limitations (and offers you the benefits of live performance as a compensation), cinema does not and in this sense, this seems a strange work to put on screen. Nonetheless, it's still an interesting experiment, and worth watching if you like your drama wordy and cerebral.

A drama of evolving inconsequence may evoke a certain appeal, as we hear the meandering rambling from one to another, the authors describe each other and themselves, analyze and criticize without arriving at any apparent conclusion or plateau of resolution. A seemingly unapparent effort in arousing suspicion amongst it's audience-in an effort to suggest a deeper meaning, a plot or subtext (this quite obviously is non existent) And yet, they continue to groan and meet with more intimate resolution as the 'play' takes a more detailed step forward, only to be rudely interrupted by their chief protagonist 'Jack' The whole affair reminds me of production meeting of a fictitious film company, with fictitious goals, offering pointless objectives based upon circumstances manipulated at their leisure as a means to perpetuate their overtly pointless existences. Still, it inspires writing in others, and indicates a challenge to conventional wisdom of broadcasting commissioners.

Overwhelmingly describes the tedious equation of life over time, as seen through the eyes of the oppressed middle classes, with no drive or enthusiasm remaining-or perhaps they are simply too boring to inject the juice into their lives once more.

Did somebody die?-I forget

If you manage to read this review and find your brain elsewhere by the second paragraph, do yourself a favor- rent Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey!