Change Your Image
dmangibson-1
Reviews
Torrents of Spring (1989)
what a waste!
Turgenev's novel is ripe for cinematic treatment but Jerzy makes one wrong decision after another and sucks the life and drama out of the novel. Though Timothy Hutton is a serviceable lead -- his Russian dance though completely out of character and not in the book is a standout -- Valeria Golino is horribly miscast as is Kinski. The script also takes such liberties with the structure and characterizations that the movie ends up collapsing under its own weight. As the filmmaker never truly establishes Hutton's commitment and love for Gemma we don't care what happens between he and Kinski. Throughout the movie the director takes what were written as character scenes and opens them up into elaborate set pieces -- the fair, the opera, the masked ball -- underscoring his insecurity about our attachment to his characters and their wants and desires. He also has the most annoying directorial tic of starting almost every scene by dollying the camera behind some foreground element; flowers, tree branches, curtains and then finding our characters making their entrance. Miramax should have repo-ed the dolly and track and given him a tripod to stick the camera on.
Turgenev deserves better. Read the book; it's much more cinematic on the page then in this film.
One last question: what is William Forsythe doing in this movie?
Erste Liebe (1970)
Poetic and captivating
Two icons of 70's international cinema -- Dominique Sanda & John Moulder
Brown -- play wonderfully off each other in this lovingly rendered tale of youth, love and the loss of innocence. The photography by none other the great Sven Nyquist more than makes up for some slight sluggishness in the narrative.
Schell's direction is lyrical but not overt or showy. But it is the leads that make this a touching and memorable adaptation of the Turgenev story. Hard to find but definitely worth it.