La jeune fille à la perle

Griet is a young maid in the household of painter Johannes Vermeer. She is responsible for cleaning his studio when he is not working but eventually Vermeer sees her carrying out her tasks and is taken by the imagery and beauty of her. He convinces her to pose for him to paint, although it must be done in secret due to tensions within the Vermeer household as well as gossips and slanderers on the streets.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring was one of those films that I knew I should watch but that sat on my HDD for quite some time. It was a windy Bank Holiday that finally moved it to the top of my viewing list. In a way I felt vindicated of both my delay and my decision to watch it because the film does have flaws and strengths that make it worth seeing but not a brilliant film. The fictional story is quite simple and short but engaging nonetheless – a lot of emphasis is put on the feelings and characters to carry the story rather than events or action but it does work. What helps the slow pace is how convincing the sets and costumes all are – you never doubt the period and the direction works with this very well.

The cast are the key to it working and thankfully they are mostly good. I'm not a massive fan of Johansson because I do think that there is an element of "fortunate blonde starlet" about her career that isn't always backed up by performance. Here though she is very good and is suitably restrained and innocent. This allows Firth to be more of a presence with her and this dynamic is important. Support from Davis and Wilkinson is good and they do add to the passions of the story with their characters and delivery.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring is a slow paced but quite rewarding film. Those looking for action or energy should leave this on the shelf for another time but, when you are in the mood for how it works then it is a most enjoyable film with a simple but well-delivered story.

Behind every picture there lies a story, and the film `Girl With a Pearl Earring' purports to give us the inside scoop into the making of Vermeer's classic painting of the same name. In the mid 1600's, a young, illiterate peasant girl named Griet came to live and work as a servant in the home of the promising, yet still financially struggling, Dutch master. Obsessed by her beauty, Vermeer insisted on using her as the subject for one of his works, much to the horror and chagrin of his jealous and shrewish wife. Despite the domestic havoc it caused, the collaboration between artist and subject resulted in one of the genuine masterpieces of the art world.

Visually, this film could not be more stunning. Thanks to luminous cinematography, art direction and costume design, the audience watching this film feels almost as if it has been transported into a Vermeer work. Director Peter Webber recreates every element of that world in loving detail, right down to his choice of actress Scarlett Johansson, who is a dead ringer for the model in the original portrait. Alexandre Desplat's score also captures the lyrical, haunting tenderness of the subject matter.

`Girl With a Pearl Earring' is a very fine movie in many respects, but it is ultimately unsatisfying because it cannot match in content what it achieves in style. Despite the exquisite look of the film, the characters seem strangely underdeveloped, most especially Vermeer himself, who remains frustratingly superficial throughout. Thanks mainly to his taciturn moodiness, we never get to know much of what he is thinking or feeling. The romantic moments between artist and subject are admirably restrained – and thereby all the more erotic in nature – but we do feel as if we would like to know more about him as a person. Griet is only slightly more fully developed, although, in her case, we can at least ascribe this lack of information to the restrictions placed on her by her station in life and the society of her time. Unlike Vermeer, Griet was conditioned by the world around her to be a passive observer. But Vermeer needs to be a more dynamic presence in the story.

One admires the fact that the filmmakers have remained truthful to the spirit of the enterprise, refusing to indulge in cheap melodramatics to make the story more salacious and scandalous than in truth it really was. Yet, in dramatic terms, such integrity comes with a price, for the film often has the effect of lulling rather than stimulating us, of raising our expectations then failing to fully satisfy them. Perhaps, in the case of this particular artwork, the story-behind-the-picture wasn't really all that interesting to begin with.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is based on the novel by Tracy Chevalier, who tells the story of a forbidden love affair (pardon the cliché) between painting master, Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth), and the only woman who seemed to appreciate his work, a timid young maid named Grit (Scarlett Johansson).

Grit is hired to work in the Vermeer household. Had you not known anything about Vermeer prior to viewing the film, it seems as though he is some deformed creature the family wishes to keep secret. The family always linger near the door to Vermeer's studio, as though something dangerous was contained within. And, as the story goes along, you might get the impression that he is a nasty fellow, the way everyone approaches the studio so delicately, careful not to disturb anything. Says one maid to Grit, he doesn't like people bothering him when he is working.

In a way, Johannes is a real bastard to his wife, children, and mother-in-law. As a painter, they're never sure whether he is going to get the commissions from the arrogant, but jolly rich patron Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), or whether they'll be escaping debtors by fleeing in the middle of the night.

Grit is curious, and at the same time, smitten with Johannes Vermeer, probably because of the initial mystery. She gains an interest in Vermeer, and in a way, also becomes his painting apprentice, helping him to mix paints, making creative suggestions about the paintings, and so forth. Vermeer introduces her to a rather different world that Grit has never known. And the two for a silent bond, a love for each other. Johannes appreciate's Grits company as a comfortable contrast to his mother-in-law, children, and especially his wife, he only seem to try to discourage his silly hobbies.

But, Johannes and Grit cannot act on their feelings for each other, at least not aloud. Divorce was highly out of the question, for one thing. But second, Johanne's was dependent on the arrogant Van Rijn for his commissions, and Van Rijn wanted Grit. Disgusted as Johannes may have been, and only slightly able to protect her (you'll see what I mean in the finale), he can't totally reject his financer. Plus, there is the barrier of master and maid, presenting a rigid social structure. And for Grit, she can only play out her affair with Johannes vicariously through her boyfriend, the Butcher.

Even if the story is not grounded in fact, or is based on little fact, the story of how Vermeer's painting, The Girl With a Pearl Earring came to be is one that presents a little mystery and romance to a painting. You can find something to appreciate it, beyond just consideration of the artistic elements of lighting or coloring, etc. In fact, art is always more fun with an intriguing story behind it (consider the controversy behind Whistler's 'Peacock Room').

I thought the movie did a fantastic job of recreating 17th century Netherlands. But what you may not know without having seen many 17 century painting, is that nearly every scene in the movie is constructed from 17 th century paintings, of Vermeers, Frans Halls, Van Dyke, and many others. The entire movie is, as one other viewer coined it, a "cinematic painting," but not just because it is a movie about the beauty of one painting, but because it is a movie entirely constructed from paintings. It was really incredible how precise everything is. Lighting, placement of figures. The actors would have to walk around a room and then at one point, hit their points precisely (props and all) to capture that one moment reflected in the painting from which it was taken from. This is really a great film for the art direction alone.

Is this an incredibly dull movie about a single painting - or is it a mesmerising and penetrating insight into art and a particular 17th century Dutch artist? It probably depends on your point of view.

Griet is a poor young girl who goes to work for the great Vermeer as a humble servant. She is pushed around emotionally by his overwrought and jealous wife, mischievous children and all-powerful lustful patron. Yet the biggest force in her life, gradually teasing out her own artistic sensibilities, is the Master himself. Griet becomes the subject of his most famous painting, lured by a mixture of dread and fascination.

For Vermeer the artist, his work is all-consuming. Every part of his world – the welfare of his family, his eccentricities, his whole energy and purpose in life, is concentrated into his work. That is not to say he lacks morals but simply that his work is his higher calling. To justify such a character, we could look to the role of art and its importance. Art can be worshipped for its own sake, like some wicked effigy, and used to excuse all manner of moral turpitude in its creator; or it can be seen as the entrance by which light can enter our soul, illuminate thought and our world in a way that cold logic alone would deny us, move us beyond the bounds of our immediate impressions and let us see the world about us in a new way, inspired and informed.

Griet carries this seed, to see beauty where others see only common place things, and it is a seed that the Master nourishes. There are times when Vermeer protects Griet from the people around he,r to whom she is so vulnerable, but is his concern towards her concern for her welfare, secret desire, or just a tool, an exquisite tool, of his trade?

Cinema is also being part of this artistic spectrum, if we allow it to be, affecting us in ways that let the viewer grow rather than just be entertained. Girl With a Pearl Earring certainly has sufficient integrity to do that, but if one just wanted to be entertained then it probably falls short. The art direction beautifully recreates Holland of the period and Scarlett Johansson gives a very well-tempered performance as young Griet. Costumes, music and overall cinematography are accomplished and haunting without loss of subtlety, producing a memorable film for lovers of art and cinema; but if paintings don't do anything for you, this film might not either.

Johannes Vermeer was a silent man. Being equipped with immense talent, brush and palette, there really was no need for words. Such philosophy is greatly dwelt upon in Peter Webber's adaptation of Tracy Chevalier's novel.

The film is breathtaking alone in the fact that the production team, led by cinematographer Eduardo Serra, production designer Ben Van Os, and art director Christina Shaeffer, manages to capture Vermeer's filling, oil-based colors, and light into every scene.

The story is exemplary as well. We are taken into a brief era in Vermeer's life in 17th century Delft. Much of the film's premise is true: Vermeer was a reticent and brilliant painter who attempted to balance his genius and deep-rooted, innate calling to art and solitude with the often overbearing demands of a bourgeoisie, Venetian society, as well as the malignant pressures posted by a sadistic commissioner, and the pressures of being the head of a massive household (when he died in 1675, he left behind his wife and 11 children).

In 1665, however, he painted a mysterious masterpiece. It's mysterious because much scholarship has since been dedicated to uncovering the identity of the model who posed for it. It has been suggested that the subject is one of his daughters, although this theory is met today with much skepticism. And this is where the film spends most of its fictional focus: that of creating an imaginary story to help speculate on what we know as factual about Vermeer's life. Enter a young, beautiful servant girl, Grit (Scarlett Johansson), who through no fault of her own, finds that her classic beauty attracts Vermeer's sensibilities-as a man and as an artist-to such a degree that he has no choice but to capture her on oil and canvas.

Vermeer (Colin Firth) spends a lot of time in this film standing quietly in the shadows and peeking around corners. There's great symbolism in many of these shots-his body is often half-covered, half-exposed, representing the dichotomy he must have felt in his life-that of being in perpetual conflict with his spiritual, artistic longings and the more human qualities of a man.

Whereas Vermeer' silence is a result of his being reluctant to communicate with the external world, mostly due to artistic self-absorption, Griet similarly is cut off from humanity, but rather out of innocence, naivety, beauty, and the unfortunate side effect of being at the low end of a rather oppressive Delft caste system where she has little voice outside of the disturbance her beauty stimulates in others. Together, the two characters find an unspoken solace, a type of kinetic energy that can only be conveyed through Vermeer's art. Indeed, one of the film's more touching moments comes when the artist reveals his portrait of her and Griet replies, 'You've seen into me.' Another memorable moment, if not altogether breathtaking, comes when Vermeer is instructing Griet in how to hold her face at the proper angle in order to catch the appropriate reflection of light on her mouth, and also when he is instructing her in how to mix his paints and their hands, for a split second, brush together. It is in such moments that Firth brilliantly conveys the tormenting dissonance present in a man not in whose base desires are overshadowing his artistic being, but rather the opposite-as a virtuoso experiencing a rare moment of temporary carnal pleasure.

All philosophy aside, is the film any good? I'd say it's extraordinary, although if you're not one to gravitate toward the biography of an artist, this may not be the film for you. However, I do believe that the human story element her is valuable, entertaining, and worthwhile.