B. Monkey

I was very fortunate to be able to attend the world premiere of this excellent new film from Michael Radford, the director of Il Postino.

B MONKEY tells the story of the romance between a quiet, jazz-loving school teacher (played by the excellent Jared Harris) and the beautiful, mysterious and dangerous Beatrice (played by Asia Argento). Beatrice, or B. Monkey as she was known in her criminal life, tries to leave her old life behind her - but it proves very hard to shake off.

This is a great film and I enjoyed it immensely. It's a hugely stylish film and is beautifully shot. The acting all round is tremendous but special honours should go to Asia Argento who gives a powerful and captivating performance.

I really hope this film will do well around the world as it is greatly deserving of huge success.

I saw this film on Saturday November 7th 1998, at the London Film Festival

This was Michael Radford's first film since "Il Postino" and it's definitely a letdown because Radford is a terrific director. Story is about a woman named B. Monkey (Asia Argento) who moonlights as an armed robber and she works with a couple of drug addicts named Bruno (Jonathan Rhys-Myers) and their father figure Paul (Rupert Everett) and a local gangster named Frank (Tim Woodward) is the one who sets up the scores. One night Bea meets Alan (Jared Harris) who is a school teacher and he asks her out on a date. She accepts and soon she falls in love with him and wants to leave her sordid past behind. Alan gets another teaching job in the country and Bea goes with him and they start to live the quiet life but one day Bea calls Paul and he traces the call back and finds out where she lives. Paul is in serious trouble with Frank and they follow him to where Bea is. One of the main problems with the story is how much Alan puts up with to be with Bea. Her friends are criminals, she was responsible for him losing his job and she displays a pretty bad temper. Maybe it's time to move on, buddy! But the strong point for the film is Argento's performance. She's a very brave actress and it appears that she would do just about anything on camera. There are several scenes in this film that require total nudity and Argento seems very comfortable doing this. Argento is Italian and grew up in Europe and European actress's seem to have a different attitude towards nudity in films. I first noticed Radford's direction in the highly underrated "1984" and also "Dancing at the Blue Iguana". Both of these films along with "Il Postino" are superbly directed but his talent wasn't evident in this film. It's adequately made but besides Argento this was a pretty tepid viewing experience. I had heard rumors that it was heavily edited but I'm not sure thats the problem. The whole film feels flat and labored and really has nothing special to offer. Argento does make it watchable though.

The first time I saw "B. Monkey" (at the Ghent Film Festival in 1998), I was amazed at how many people had come to see this action movie starring Asia Argento. Of course it wasn't because of Asia's charismatic performances this movie was so popular, but because it was the latest film by Michael Radford, director of "Il Postino" (together with "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulin" the longest running movie in the last ten years - well, in Antwerp anyway). From "Il Postino" to "B. Monkey" was a weird step and perhaps one of the reasons why "B. Monkey" gets so many negative reviews.

I'm well aware that this movie is a male-oriented vision of escapism, but when the result is a movie like this, one wants to take a lot for granted.

"B. Monkey" was based on a novel by Andrew Davies who has been writing since the late 60s and has penned many scripts for well-known productions such as the script for the "Bridget Jones Diary" and the lesbian BBC drama "Tipping The Velvet". He knows how to tell a story and perhaps this is why, in my opinion, "B. Monkey" is so much better than the usual drama where a delinquent girl meets an honest man and decides to better her life (genders may be changed here). Even though you can predict the big lines of the story, you're still surprised at certain plot changes.

Alan (Wayne Wang favourite Jarid Harris) and Beatrice (Asia 'daughter of Argento) couldn't be further apart: she's a bank-robbing criminal, he teaches poor kids and has a jazz show on hospital radio. Once again something that makes you realize that this movie walks a thin line between good cinema and a third-rate tv's movie of the week. Believable acting by Harris, Argento and, not to forget, Rupert Everett helps the movie to stay on the right part of that thin line.

This movie is basically carried by the two leads (particularly Asia Argent, daughter of Dario Argento) and by Rupert Everett in a supporting role. The script is average and the plot a tad too obvious at times, but Argento catches fire on camera and does a very good job. If you like action-thrillers, by all means watch thi one. Recommended.

It isn't quite a genre, but there sure is a tightly related collection of films that rely on an actress to charm us.

The form is simple: find a woman with intrinsic energy, and shape a story to pull that out. We fall in love just like the usually helpless guy in the story. Events surround and threaten, all designed to highlight the specific charms of the focus and show that we (through our representative) will stick with the girl.

Its a simple narrative fold, a trick to engage us in the story. The story is the girl, and the tighter we follow her, the more we are drawn into the story.

The problem of course is that its all designed to pull us in, with nothing of value happening while we are in. The usual solution is to acknowledge that and make a point of the future being empty, deliberately so. So Deckard goes of with Rachel into a void. Its about the staying, the belonging.

There are only three real values in this. Does the girl charm? Is the story and the charming integrated? What's the world they send us into at the end?

This girl is the daughter of a filmmaker who specializes in doing violence to such characters, layering heavy noir dynamics on them. So there's that. She's particularly seductive in an aggressive way, not at all say, like Dalle in Betty Blue, where we the viewer are complicit in the seduction. Dalle matters. We carry her away after the film.

Our girl here is nude a few times as if that matters a lot. The hapless guy is a radio storyteller, teacher, musician, champion of social justice as if we needed more than one anchor.

She's also a wonderful thief, as if we needed some "Ms 45" seduction, that sort of ping when the sex is with someone who has killed. So its all overloaded.

The last 20 minutes is close to lovely. Its been done before, this business of painting a derelict room in the wild. (I recently saw it to good effect in Stromboli.) Our girl turns lovely in the country. But its the sideshow with two gay friends that makes this worth watching.

These guys are played by Rupert Everett and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. If you study narrative, you'll appreciate how this backstory supports the whole. Its quite lovely because she is most sexual, nude and loved when in the company of these men. It gives her an excuse to show us that she is inherently seduction, not deliberately so. It provides a footing for love that is outside of sex, and though based on obsession and addiction transcends them by using them.

Everett really seems to understand this. Its his best performance by far. You almost fall in love with him instead of her by misdirection, because that's where the passion is. So it works, sex without sex, love by capture.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.