Tag: Colette

Earthquake Bird

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Tokyo, 1989. An American woman who’s not long been in Japan has disappeared and the last person to see her alive is Lucy Fly (Alicia Vikander) who has lived in the country for five years, two months. Lucy is hauled in for questioning by the police and as her life in Japan slowly reveals itself in flashback, it becomes apparent why they want to talk to her.

Lucy is quiet, reserved, introverted. She mostly keeps herself to herself. She fits in well in Japanese society with its emphasis on the importance of the group over the individual. She is fluent in Japanese and works as a translator. She plays cello in an amateur string quartet with three much older Japanese women.

She also socialises with a group of international expats which is where Bob (Jack Huston) introduces her to the woman about whom the police wish to question her, Lily Bridges (Riley Keough) who is working as a nurse. The two women possess very different personalities. Lucy might be foolish to agree to take the newly arrived foreigner under her wing and show her the ropes. Lily is the stereotypical American: brash, outgoing and nosy. Not someone you imagine adapting well to Japanese society. She doesn’t even speak the language.

Lucy’s life changes when she runs into a man taking photographs on the street. He claims not to be interested in photographing people, only buildings, water, reflections. Something hooks her. Teiji Matsuda (Naoki Kobayashi) works at a noodle restaurant, but amateur photography is his passion. Soon she’s regularly going back to his flat, strangely situated at the top of an exterior spiral staircase and fully equipped as a darkroom, to be photographed. When on one occasion she removes her top, he tells her that wasn’t what he wanted. Before long, however, the pair have entered into a full-on, physical relationship.

She becomes obsessed with the photographs of old girlfriends Teiji keeps locked away in a filing cabinet. She knows where the key is and takes a look. When he later finds out, he is not pleased. Lily, meanwhile, wants to meet the boyfriend and when she does is clearly attracted to Teiji. This classic love triangle setup is fuelled by the growing tension between Lucy and Teiji.

Much as it would like to play like a Japanese thriller, Earthquake Bird is the adaptation of an English novel and it doesn’t feel very Japanese – despite a great quantity of Japanese dialogue, much of it delivered by Vikander. (To her credit, for this film she had to learn both the Japanese language and playing the cello, the latter something she’d learned a little as a child.) That said, as an outsider’s view of Japan, it’s convincing enough. And it has to have something of a grasp of Japanese culture and the country’s mindset to work.

When the police initially question Lucy, they do so in second-rate English until they discover she’s fluent in Japanese, something she doesn’t initially reveal. This seems to be typical of the woman. She is beset by guilt for an incident in her pre-Japan past for which she rightly or wrongly believes herself responsible.

For those wondering about the title, it relates to a bird that, as Teiji explains to Lucy, if you listen carefully, can be quietly heard to sing following an earthquake. There are several small-scale literal earthquakes in the narrative, that are soon over without any ill after effects. And then there are minor earthquake-comparable incidents, like a violinist from the string quartet slipping down steps to her death, to the shame of her fellow player who has recently polished the stairs and fears she may be responsible for the accident. Or Lucy falling ill when she, Teiji and Lily go on a day trip to Sado Island.

The whole is visually arresting throughout, with top-notch cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon who shot Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003) and The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook, 2016) and production design by Yohei Tanada who also did ManHunt (John Woo, 2017) and The Third Murder (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2017), so while you could wait a couple of weeks for it to turn up on Netflix, you might enjoy it more if you see it on the big screen first. As you might expect from Wash Westmoreland, previously the co-writer-director behind Still Alice (2014) and Colette (2018), this is as much character and culture study as it is thriller, which may infuriate some but reward those with the patience to take it on its own terms.

Earthquake Bird is out in the UK on Friday, November 1st. On Netflix in March!

Colette

Posted on by victorfraga

We have already seen Keira Knightley in The Duchess (Raul Dibb, 2008) astutely depicting the real-life Duchess of Devonshire, who, in the 18th century had to struggle with and failed to escape the tutelage of her ghastly husband. Here the tale is happier. Originally coming as an innocent country girl from Burgundy on marrying Henri Gauthier-Villars, the titular protagonist arrives in the Paris of the Belle Époque and is expected to ghost her husband’s novels, which are published under his pen-name of “Willy”.

These books are entitled Claudine, and in truth they are Colette’s semi-biographical writings. No acknowledgement is made of her contribution. The first book Claudine at School is so well written that it immediately becomes a runaway bestseller. Her husband is played with convincing obtuseness by Dominic West. He believes that his wife is somehow his property and even locks her in a room, expecting her to get on with her writing. This topic will ring bells with those who recently saw The Wife (Bjorn Runge, 2018), starring Glenn Close.

Claudine eventually becomes a brand. Girls go around in France dressed like Claudine with bobbed hair, a white collar and schoolboy like black uniform. Meanwhile Willy is making a lot of money – or rather not – as he keeps spending it on all sorts of things and wasting it on mistresses. Colette is expected to put up with all this, but she doesn’t. Into her life comes Missy, skilfully played by Denise Gough, and they start a lesbian relationship. Eventually, she breaks free of Willy and leads her own successful life as one of France’s leading authors.

In addition to being a ghostwriter, Colette eventually becomes a burlesque dancer. She performs highly risqué lesbian acts with Missy at the Moulin Rouge, with her Willy as her business partner. He is not too concerned about his wife’s sexuality. Willy’s big problem is that in presenting shows featuring lesbianism and trying to make money out of it, he reinforces the sexual stereotypes that oppress his wife and other women, while she is liberating herself with calm self-assurance.

So far so very satisfactory and so very gender-bending but what makes this film so moving is Keira Knightley. She quietly grows from an innocent country girl to a calm, self-confident woman making her own decisions on her own terms without any reference to what others think. She slips into bed with other women (both Missy and an American lover) because it suits her, not because she has adopted a Lesbian identity.

The Belle Époque is extensively depicted throughout the film. This is the Paris of the Moulin Rouge, the cancan, the frou-frou skirts, Toulouse Lautrec and elegant gentlemen in morning suits and top hats. It is the world that Marcel Proust knew. That will attract people in its own right. But there is also a dark side of the Belle Époque: the constant availability of women to satisfy male desire, the hard work of entertaining, the constant dependence on the rich, privileged male.

This is an exquisitely crafted film, and the research has been done properly. Everything from wash basins, to exercise books, the cut of women’s clothes, the dark, wooden, heavy furniture, wall paper and lighting seems right. Colette is definitely worth a trip to the theatre. It’s both delightful to watch and also a mature tribute to feminism.

Colette is in cinemas across the UK from Wednesday, January 9th. On VoD on Monday, May 13th.