Anchoress

A while back, there was a glowing review about this movie, saying that the choice of a soundtrack was brilliant, and every time whoever wrote the review watched the movie, he, or she learned something new.

Well, I'll admit that it does have a sort of addicting pull about it, but I haven't learned anything new really. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I think the real reason is that the movie is not as great as that particular post made it out to be.

I like the film, but mainly, I like it for it's peculiar sexual themes. The acting is pretty good, but without much soundtrack, there's a lot of dead air where you expect something fantastically important to happen... Then the actors do something totally inexplicable, like move a bunch of rocks, or apples, or kiss a statue.

All said, it looks more like a work in progress than a movie, but there's something about that unfinished quality that really catches my attention, and sucks me in, whether I like it or not.

This is a fascinating movie. With minimal dialogue it seems to speak volumes and give so much food for thought about life for women, peasants, communities and the church in medieval times and the tensions between these. Visually it is often very beautiful especially in its depiction of nature. It is slow moving as fitting the times but it is absorbing all the same. There are echoes of Joan of Arc among the themes. Toyah Wilcox, better known as a former pop star, gives a surprisingly strong performance. Natalie Morse is compelling in the lead role, and there are also strong performances from Christopher Ecclestone and Pete Postlethwaite.

one may need a plot summary of the story being told in the anchoress, but only if one has somehow remained ignorant of those forms of punishment forever meted out on women's bodies and minds by ideologies of transcendence, and for some reason considers those punishments better articulations of truth than are the images in this magnificent film. i am grateful for having stumbled upon it, and suggest that many will be well rewarded for paying it close attention.

Exquisitely spare cinematography and striking visuals which ape Andrei Tarkovsky's ANDREI RUBLEV cannot save this medieval tale from being a disappointment. English director Chris Newby's first feature is a dismally muddled array of images of life in a remote 14th-century village.

Talented young thespian Natalie Morse (of Peter GreenawayÕs DROWNING BY NUMBERS) nevertheless succeeds in her tricky role as Christine Carpenter, a girl touched by transcendent grace, who succumbs to the misguided religious authority of the times and becomes an anchoress, a virgin who is walled up in a chamber in the church, to serve as a moral beacon for the villagers.

This makes the snickering local priest (Christopher Eccleston) overjoyed, as he takes her away from the Reeve (Eugene Bervoets, of the original French-Dutch production of THE VANISHING), the local military power monger. She is periodically visited by her surly pagan mother (English new-wave personality Toyah Wilcox) and pretty much ignored by her father, who is played by Pete Postlethwaite.

The only real power in the film is in the scenes with Christine alone, discovering her sensuality. The rest of the film is a mess, partly due to the confusing, overly obscure script, which hardly lets the audience know what's going on without benefit of reading a plot synopsis beforehand. It purports to observe the female condition through the ages, but ends up being mostly uninsightful and boring.

This film must be watched with a quiet spirit and a willingness to let go of well-organized, linear plot development. Those familiar with The Book of Margery Kempe will appreciate the spiritual struggle Anchoress represents as well as the more "feminine" approach to plot. The cinematography is exquisite as well as the acting.