Jericho Mansions
Screened at the Hollywood International Film Festival
Alberto Sciamma has assembled an intriguing cast for his film "Jericho Mansions", and the mix of experimental techniques and visual effects with the conventional trappings of a murder mystery piques one's curiosity. But it's the old story: If your characters are shallow and uncompelling, nothing is going to salvage audience indifference. This quirky Canadian-British co-production makes a decent festival offering, but the Vine International Pictures film's chances as a theatrical release are marginal at best.
James Caan, in a low-key and nicely detailed performance, plays an apartment building superintendent whose agoraphobia has not allowed him to venture beyond the front door for 30 years. Safe within the building confines, though, Caan knows every corner, every passageway and every air vent. To underscore how expansive such a world can be, Sciamma, who co-wrote (with Harriet Sand) and directs, has the camera prowl crawl spaces and inner walls of the building where water drips from leaky pipes and peep holes offer clandestine views into the lives of the tenants.
The building's owner, Genevieve Bujold, hates the super. She accuses him of stealing and wants him gone. Jennifer Tilly, a masseuse who may massage more than just backs, has a precious little daughter and a loathsome husband who cheats on her every chance he gets with Maribel Verdu, the wife of another tenant. When the husband turns up dead in a trash bin, the police conduct a lackadaisical investigation while the movie drops hints that implicate the super.
Complicating the puzzle are mysterious flashbacks Caan suffers, in which a dazed, bloodied man stumbles hopelessly about the Spanish desert. Other scenes, especially one in which Tilly seduces Caan, may be figments of his imagination. Tilly's little girl walks in her sleep, and Caan believes that he must be sleepwalking too. Doing so one night, he suddenly finds himself speaking fluent Spanish. Where did that come from?
A viewer is only mildly interested in the answer to this and other questions despite strained efforts by the actors. Sciamma shows little interest himself in what makes these characters tick. Whether shrill (Bujold) or withdrawn (Caan), all lack dimension. Sciamma is too distracted by his idiosyncratic camera angles and effects to see the characters as anything more than objects to be photographed.
Alberto Sciamma has assembled an intriguing cast for his film "Jericho Mansions", and the mix of experimental techniques and visual effects with the conventional trappings of a murder mystery piques one's curiosity. But it's the old story: If your characters are shallow and uncompelling, nothing is going to salvage audience indifference. This quirky Canadian-British co-production makes a decent festival offering, but the Vine International Pictures film's chances as a theatrical release are marginal at best.
James Caan, in a low-key and nicely detailed performance, plays an apartment building superintendent whose agoraphobia has not allowed him to venture beyond the front door for 30 years. Safe within the building confines, though, Caan knows every corner, every passageway and every air vent. To underscore how expansive such a world can be, Sciamma, who co-wrote (with Harriet Sand) and directs, has the camera prowl crawl spaces and inner walls of the building where water drips from leaky pipes and peep holes offer clandestine views into the lives of the tenants.
The building's owner, Genevieve Bujold, hates the super. She accuses him of stealing and wants him gone. Jennifer Tilly, a masseuse who may massage more than just backs, has a precious little daughter and a loathsome husband who cheats on her every chance he gets with Maribel Verdu, the wife of another tenant. When the husband turns up dead in a trash bin, the police conduct a lackadaisical investigation while the movie drops hints that implicate the super.
Complicating the puzzle are mysterious flashbacks Caan suffers, in which a dazed, bloodied man stumbles hopelessly about the Spanish desert. Other scenes, especially one in which Tilly seduces Caan, may be figments of his imagination. Tilly's little girl walks in her sleep, and Caan believes that he must be sleepwalking too. Doing so one night, he suddenly finds himself speaking fluent Spanish. Where did that come from?
A viewer is only mildly interested in the answer to this and other questions despite strained efforts by the actors. Sciamma shows little interest himself in what makes these characters tick. Whether shrill (Bujold) or withdrawn (Caan), all lack dimension. Sciamma is too distracted by his idiosyncratic camera angles and effects to see the characters as anything more than objects to be photographed.
- 21/10/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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