Mademoiselle Julie

MISS JULIE is interesting and Mike Figgis knows how to make the drama work within the intimate confines of a play. He's a master technician of escalating the tension, whether it be with classical music or an intense moment of digression with the lead. Unfortunately, I found the script to be rather dull. The daughter of the count talks about these dreams and laments on her situation. Peter Mullan sits there, sometimes with his arms crossed, other times kissing her feet or trying to seduce her. Either way, hardly the best delivery from Figgis. The original play just doesn't work on film, not matter how hard the filmmaker tries. Even if the forest, which clearly was a set made me want to shut the thing off. Still, Figgis is one of the most talented filmmakers working today.

August Strindberg is one of Sweden's most important writers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ‘Miss Julie' is one of Strindberg's plays written around the turn of the century. This is a powerful story of anger, hate, lust and class envy. The play revolves around two main characters. Jean (Peter Mullan) is a footman, a servant to a Count in northern Sweden in the late 1890's. Julie (Saffron Burrows) is the Count's shrewish and self loathing daughter.

Jean is tormented by his attraction to Julie and his simultaneous hatred of her class. The play focuses on an encounter they have one midsummer's night in the servants' kitchen. Jean takes his resentment out on Julie with sarcastic remarks and open disdain for the gentry of which she is a part. She responds sometimes docilely and contritely, and at others with condescending vitriol. This open antipathy belies their sexual attraction and the embattled conversation leads to a seduction, which is really less of a seduction than a mutual ravishment. Afterward, as Julie is more vulnerable, Jean attempts to manipulate her into stealing money from her father and running away with him so he can indulge his secret ambition to own a hotel and become a part of the upper class he now so despises. The film ends on a decided downbeat, which is no surprise given the characters' deeply disturbed personalities.

The story is intense, intelligent and visceral. It is has more the feel of a play (one set, crude props, only one or two costumes per actor). However, though the acting is more that of a theatrical production, it is shot more like a modern motion picture. Director Mike Figgis does a good job with the camera, using some innovative techniques to keep it from looking like you are watching a play through a window.

The story is likely to be appreciated by only a very small audience. Not only is it very dark, but all the characters are distasteful. Jean is angry, sardonic, obnoxious and manipulative. Julie is shrewish, condescending, self hating, and insecure. There is really no one with whom the audience can identify. This renders the entire story potent but extremely unpleasant. Also, it deals with themes that were mainstream in 1900, but are generally beyond the ken of today's audiences.

The actors were fabulously cast and the acting superb. Peter Mullen is short, craggy and Napoleonic, while Saffron Burrows is tall, willowy, and graceful. Besides being well cast for their stations, she was at least four inches taller than he, and this worked well with all the allusions to the aristocracy being `up there' and the servants being `down here'.

Peter Mullen played the part flat out. He was pugnacious and full of indignant rage, envy and spurn. The acclaim Saffron Burrows received for this performance was well deserved. She handled the difficult range of emotions deftly, moving effortlessly from whimpering child to haughty bitch and all the complex self torturing emotions in between.

I rated this film an 8/10. This is not a film for everyone. In fact it is a film that most people will probably dislike. I would recommend it for the ardent theatergoer who is a battle tested veteran of microscopic character studies involving flawed characters. To like this film you have to be one who can appreciate trying and disturbing emotional portrayals without a need to like any of the characters. For everyone else, it will probably be a harrowing and disagreeable experience.

Mike Figgis' 'Miss Julie', an adaptation of a Strindberg play, tells the story of a relationship struggling in the face of class divisions, and protagonists torn between their obsessions and ambitions. Figgis gets intense performances out of his cast, the music (written by himself) is excellent and in spite of its origins on the stage, he avoids an overly static feel; and the language (rendered in English) seems fresh. But the characters themselves are a little too archetypal, their feelings theatrically contrived into dialogue; personally I couldn't care too much about their ultimate tragedy. An immaculately made film, but somehow less than the sum of its parts.

I have just seen miss Julie for the first time on BBC 2 here in the UK and thought Saffron Burrows performance was quite wonderful! She show such range of emotions along side Peter Mullan who played the role Jean opposite her who also outstanding.A few years ago i had the pleasure of meeting Saffron Burrows over a few occasions and found her quite delightful and a witty lady.I urge who have not seen Miss Julie to rent it out because Mr Mike Figgis has done great creative job bringing this play to the screen. I must see some other work Mrs Burrows has done and hope that some of it is of the same high class as this production showed!! I just wished the Hollywood studios could produce more high value productions as Mrs Juile instead of remaking original cult classics such as The Italian Job and my father's movie The Wicker Man remade by Mr Nicholas Cage! Oh well we can only hope for better things for the future.

This movie is worthwhile to see due to the powerful performances of Saffron Burrows and Peter Mullan. Mike Figgis once again displays a knack for digging in deep into a story and opening a pandora's box of human emotions; leaving the viewer to make their own conclusions of the politics of a sexist, class conscious society and how it wrecks havoc on the souls of two vastly different people.