Intenções Ocultas

A good premise, not bad acting, a provocative story of revenge, step by step. At first sight, good ingredients for a decent film. The only problem remains their not very fair use. The potential of story remains the basic virtue and the film is saved by the gaslighting. The actors are more than good, but their work covers only a story reduced to easy solutions.

I think the top review by derektrottersk says it all. The reviews are too harsh on this movie. It's actually an intelligent, theatrical drawing-room drama about a sophisticated but blind art critic and his quiet and beautiful amanuensis. Each turns out to be not as they seem. Some of the dramatic tension comes from Sir Paul's blindness, and how he and those close to him deal with it. Some drama arises out of the scenario of a beautiful new woman living together with a difficult, handicapped old man in this grand manor house. I thought it was well played by both Conti and Hannah.

Not a movie to be avoided.

Saw this in a preview today. If you like Sleuth, then this is a poor man's relation. Very theatrical, and in fact best suited to the stage than the big screen, this film documents the mind games played out between a reclusive blind author and his new live in assistant. Daryl Hannah can't act for toffee in the latter role but does please the boys by getting her kit off, although how it advances the plot defeats me....Tom Conti plays the eccentric art critic author to a tee, and holds the whole thing together...just! Elaine Paige plays a very strange cameo role (the casting in this film is a little odd to say the least). Lots of Gothic overtones and a creaking old mansion in the country fit the stereotyped mould of the film but at least if doesn't overstay its welcome at 90 mins. Suspend disbelief and ignore the plot holes, and the film is weirdly enjoyable....

It is very strange to my mind that such a celebrated director as Raoul Ruiz is making straight-to-video movies in the UK! However the English-language world has a goldfish memory for foreign giants and so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. Maybe he needs to get Spike Jonze or Quentin Tarantino to "sponsor" him ^^. Nucingen House didn't even get a DVD release, so we shouldn't look a gift horse in the eye with this one.

So we have an art critic living in a country pile who has gone blind following some nasty maiming. He wishes to publish a final book and thus sets about hiring an "amanuensis" to assist him with this. Tom Conti plays the role of blind critic Paul pretty well, he has just the right mix of pomposity and fragility. The film is quite surreal, but nowhere more so perhaps than when we see a selection of self-absorbed characters interviewed for the position of amanuensis. In this country we never really hailed the arrival of the Surrealist movement, which is perhaps strange as we are about as surreal as it gets. So surreal that we understandably have problems rising out of the fog and making well-realised films about ourselves, although Patrick Keiller's London and Peter Greenaway's The Falls are notable successes. Yes the UK is a nightmare of prejudice, public conformity, self-repression, snobbishness, and reverse snobbishness; all the more bizarre as it's totally unenforced. British lives collectively are a myriad of uncorrelated banalities. We live in post-colonial anomie. Another example in the film is the political canvasser who is timid and petrified at the idea of engaging with someone on a non-superficial level, even if that were to be a well-to-do blind man, and even if that were, ostensibly, her mission. Our politics are quite funny, although we have again an ostensibly socialist party in government, it's just come to light that, in effect, Tesco are able to pay to get proposed legislation torpedoed!

The amanuensis (Jane) is eventually selected and is played by Darryl Hannah. She's fairly clearly hostile to him from the start, but is gentle enough in resting demeanour that it's clear we're seeing a vendetta from an aggrieved party, rather than the acts of a psychotic. There's a lovely example of female passive aggressive behaviour here, which, as someone who is as pompous as they come, though with a strong twist of self-deprecation that most don't ever seem to get, I have experienced myself. Jane sits listening to the usual enthusiastic and self-indulgent discourse, carefully choosing her moment to burst his bubble, when Paul mentions that it was always a bad thing to do for writers to drink, she coldly brings up Bukowski and Hemingway.

There is camera-work here, though the movie is obviously a quickie. The best example would be when the camera floats dreamily as we are told of Princess Diana's appearance in Bhutan. The opening shot of the spires of the pile are suitably surreal, however the atmosphere of the very comfortable gentrified interior is in contrast to that making the opener look slightly contrived. Being a quickie we also have a generic soundtrack over the top, which must have taken all of half an hour to select and edit in during post-production. I doubt anything was shot twice in the movie either, hence the zoom shots when Paul takes his glasses off, which are a bit silly.

For people who care about such things, the twist at the end regarding the critic himself, was pretty obvious in the first act if you are used to looking at paintings with anything other than a blank stare, or have knowledge about the meaning behind the travel itineraries of British men.

Though this is a quick production, done with a minimum of fuss and cost, there's enough artistic value to make this worth a watch. You even get to hear a good recital of the poem Jenny by James Henry Leigh Hunt.

You'll get it (my summary line), once you've seen the movie. The question is, do you want to? The premise itself is quite interesting and our two main actors really go at it. You know there is more to it, from the first moment they meet. You just don't know what and who ... and especially why.

I have to be cryptic, because there are twists along the way. They may not be exploited all in the best way possible and you may be a bit dissatisfied with all the build up and eventual ... pay off ... but it is a neat little thriller with a good central idea. If you dig that, you are on a good way to be entertained by the movie - despite its pacing and some flaws along the way.