The Vintner's Luck

The film is slow, ethereal, yes. It's interesting with too notch acting. I rather like it. Religious, thought provoking, a bit. Very French! Focus on the small, emotional things. Unsaid the larger pragmatic points of the plot. I am not sure how you could speed up the pace of a film like this. I like the slowness for a slow afternoon film. I feel it culminates.

It's 19th century France. Sobran Jodeau is a peasant working for a château winemaker. He wants to make more than peasant wine. During one drunken night, he is rescued by angel Xas who offers him special seeds in exchange for meeting him one night every year for the rest of his life. Sobran marries Celeste (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and starts a family. The Chateau's Baroness Aurora de Valday (Vera Farmiga) returns from Paris. It's a fable of love, passion, and wine.

Niki Caro, who wrote and directed 'Whale Rider', has created a melodrama about French vine during the Napoleanic age. It's a bit of a grind. It's long and melodramatic like an old romance novel. It does go off in unexpected directions. The passion for the vines do come through the screen. Jérémie Renier has a shiftiness that is unappealing and distracts from the assumed passion from Sobran. His European accent don't match either Vera or Keisha. Keisha is underused and is no more than a face. Another lead could tie the whole movie together. This movie struggles to find solid ground but I do like the wine making.

I was thrilled to hear Niki Caro was going to make this movie, no one else would have been able to portray the 'basic' elements of the novel better than she could and very well did. From start to finish the movie consisted of a real feeling of love and life. More so that she exactly put just that into making this film. The importance of simple things which when given love, sweat and time grow into something special, which if you haven't read the novel is the basic idea.

There is a heavy pagan love of the earth atmosphere in the movie ensuring an uplifting feeling. Leading me onto the visuals which where spot on, the sweeping French vineyards and valleys where just as I imagined them.

The casting was perfect, Sobran who is played by Jeremie Renier provided us with a inspiring and moving look at the trials and tribulations experienced by a 19th century wine maker. I would hate to give this remarkable film any negativity but it does bare mentioning that Xas is completely neglected. Played by the fantastic Gaspard Ulliel much that could have been anticipated was actually not used at all. In fact almost all of the characters fascinating background such as his knowledge of there whereabouts of haven and hell, his relationship with another human, other than Sobran, and the reason why he is a fallen angel is not remotely even mentioned in the movie. The angel seams to be of no importance sadly and could in fact have been withdraw all together. Niki Caro sort of justified this in the Q&A "the movie is about life". It seams to me that she didn't want to add the philosophical characteristic's which was very sad to me, Xas is a captivating individual. Aurora De Valday (Vera Farmiga) was compelling but sadly Celeste (Keisha Castle-Hughes) fell flat in the second half.

Many fans of the novel might be disappointed due to the amount of fundamental moments in the development of the characters which is simply dropped out all together. However I do strongly think that this is as great an adaptation as anyone could have hoped for. Also if its anything to go by I was at the gala presentation, after which it received a huge round of applause.

This film, which transports us to 19th century France, is so beautiful in so many ways. It seeps in and touches you with the delicacy of a fine wine. The pace of it let's you digest each moment and allows you to linger in a wonderful world of passion, desire, spiritedness as well as death and anguish. Which is why I loved the film so much...the duality of it. It's not like your typical Hollywood movie in which one thing or another is forced onto you. The film takes you on a journey where you can think about, and more importantly feel the duality of life...the duality of your own life and spirit. It awakens an understanding within yourself through the characters and the script. The acting is superb...Vera Farmiga is at her best and Keisha Castle-Hughes has become a fierce woman with such raw vibrancy I was wishing for more of her. The script takes the kind of turns and risks you can only hope for when watching a film. Filled with such feeling and thought it's a tale that lingers on long after leaving the theater....isn't that what art is all about.

Didn't know about a book, had no expectations. Surprised by supernatural element involving an angel. Being impatient, the slow moving pace left me wanting, but I stuck through because I liked the strength of the actors, especially the lead. Glad I did by the end. Was ambivalent about the many allegories about wine making and life spoken by the angel, but eventually these ideas did became more than words. Betrayal, reconciliation, the many shades of love and loss. Eventually you understand.

Didn't like the dark color palette in the beginning, but was impressed by the authenticity of the dirt and grunge of the peasant laborers. Much like the Game of Thrones franchise in that way. And when the lead becomes richer by his Wine taking risks, the velvet brocade and ruby wine bedazzles the scene like darkly gorgeous vintage. Very pleasing.

The film is odd because it seems to have a Christian spiritual feel, yet it is decidedly gray area rather than black and white. It is even hedonistic, existentialist and atheistic, while also speaking about heaven and hell in a manner reminiscent of how Frankenstein's monster spoke with his creator in Mary Shelley's violent and philosophical book. Where "Frankenstein" is violent though "A Heavenly Vintage" is intensely erotic in a way that is sometimes like violence except sublimated into passion. The slow burn nature of "A Heavenly Vintage" coupled with its underlying eroticism (and sometimes homoeroticism) is mysteriously affecting, even while being an oddly uplifting tale based in an extraordinary humanism.