Os Amantes de Maria

What an underrated film!

Symbols: a chair in an open field that survives years, the lure of eyes of a woman/wife, and a bleeding, pregnant rat!

This is a film about love between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife--and how it lasts for ever.

This is also a film about a dying father and son, of a mute elderly mother and a daughter.

The chair, the eyes, and the rat are all essential to the film. The chair is repeatedly shown. Eyes are mentioned by Ivan's father about Ivan's dead mother. Eyes are essential to the song sung twice by Keith Carradine's character. Rats are symbolic of past, present and future of Ivan's sexual life.

Into the film, perceptive viewers could compare and contrast the two different reactions of Ivan when two Maria's lovers taunt him. Yet the film is more about Maria and less about Ivan.

Very Russian, very European, though the settings are American. The soul of Russian literary giants permeate through the film. A lovely shot towards the end is the silhouette of father (Mitchum) and son (Savage). You can get the feel of Tarkovsky's friend and colleague at work. It is sad the film has not been noticed/applauded better.

The film centers on Ivan (John Savage), a WWII P.O.W. who returns to his small hometown after the war. He survived in the P.O.W. camp by imagining a marriage and life with Maria (Nastassia Kinski), the prettiest girl he knew growing up. When he gets home, he woos and marries her, but cannot consummate the marriage. This naturally leads to dysfunction, frustration, and infidelity. Also starring Keith Carradine as a fast-talking, wandering balladeer, Robert Mitchum (with a beard) as Savage's father, Vincent Spano, Bud Cort, John Goodman, Bill Smitrovich, and Tracy Nelson.

The script is all over the place, with some scenes achieving some frank honesty and emotional truth, while others seem wildly florid and almost campily over-the-top. Savage's natural tendencies to be a bit histrionic in his performances works okay here, since his character is supposed to be a bit unbalanced and dealing with PTSD. Kinski delivers her most mature performance to date, but she's still a bit rough around the edges, and some lines come out clunky.

Carradine steals the movie, though, with an oily turn as a seedy Lothario. Mitchum just has to be gruff and drunk, which was never a problem for him. Anyone with prudish sensibilities should be forewarned that there's a lot of heavy breathing here, as well.

"Maria's Lovers" is, first of all, a beautiful-looking film. Juan Ruiz Anchía does a fantastic job photographing the film, making wonderful use of light. Scene after scene is brilliantly framed and shot, at times feeling like a series of photographs. Anchía and director Andrei Konchalovsky make a great team. But this is essential to make a film such as this watchable, because the general attitude of virtually every character is endlessly frustrating. Most are motivated by sex, some by fear, some by greed, some by possessiveness, some by misguided innocence.

There are no particular flaws in any of the performances. Kinski, Savage, Mitchum and Carradine create characters of real depth. There are times when "Maria's Lovers" has the overpowering sense of being made in the mold of the great classic tragedies. Which is to say, everyone is more miserable more often than is entirely likely in real life. But I could be wrong, and perhaps there are lives which very closely parallel those shown here. Either way, it is a supremely difficult, painful, intense, and ultimately believable picture. To the right audience, it could very nearly be considered perfect. It's a clean, true, human depiction.

Saw this film long ago and thought it was beautiful and moving. It was imperative to understanding this film to know that during the time the husband was imprisoned, Maria's picture had become a religious icon for him. SHe had become a saint in his mind, and therefore the problems resulting with him unable to treat Maria as a real woman after his return from the war. It is important to know that Orthodox religions pray through the Saints. Her picture was the only thing he had to keep sane during his prisoner of war years, so it was of immense importance. THe short black and white war scene at the beginning of the film had to be considered very carefully before one could understand the horrors this man had endured. It is important to realise, especially today, that men come back from war changed, although we stay the same.

A World War II soldier (Savage) returns to marry his old lover (Kinski) but his inability to father a child leads to the destruction of their marriage. The couple goes through a series of tribulations before coming together again. Savage gives a so-so performance as the tormented husband who loses the will to commit to the sanctity of the marriage bond. Kinski gives her most versatile and inspired performance ever as the anguished wife. If anything, watch her. The director, Andrei Konchalovsky, is actually Russian. The movie is a pastiche of styles from American and European film-making. Strong powerful storytelling through the chronology of time tinged with the emotional pathos that is typical of most European films. In the end, the mix is a bit jagged and mismatched, but this doesn't stray from an otherwise strong and moving movie.